


It’s Always Been You

by AskaSophia



Series: It's Always Been You [1]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Canon Lesbian Relationship, Developing Relationship, F/F, Older lesbians
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2020-06-30 00:02:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19841305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AskaSophia/pseuds/AskaSophia
Summary: A series of one-shots of Jocelyn and Maggie’s relationship, beginning from when they kissed.





	1. The Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> This begins just after Jocelyn kisses Maggie in s2e7. I stick to TV canon as much as possible, but I have not read the official short story collection by Erin Kelly that accompanies series two.  
> I read in a fanfic somewhere that Jocelyn smelt like lavender and summer sun, and Maggie smelt like citrus, and it felt so right I decided to use it, but I’ve forgotten where I read it. If it’s your idea, please let me know and I will acknowledge it.

Jocelyn is surprised when Maggie leans into the kiss. The hand raised between them settles on Jocelyn’s shoulder softly, gently, like Maggie is afraid of breaking something. Unsure how far Maggie wants to take this, Jocelyn tentatively runs her tongue across Maggie’s bottom lip, seeking entrance, and feels a wave of hope and joy when Maggie opens her mouth to her. She tastes of citrus, of yellow. Of happiness, thinks Jocelyn absently, digging her fingers deeper into Maggie’s hair, running her blunt nails against the back of her scalp, hearing Maggie moan softly.

“Jocelyn...” Maggie breathes out slowly, pulling back slightly to look at her, searching her face. She can still taste Jocelyn. Has wondered, all these years, what kissing her would taste like, what it would _feel_ like, and now she knows. Her body, fizzing with desire for days, for weeks really, since she had asked Jocelyn to take the Latimer case, so close to Jocelyn, surrounded by Jocelyn, smelling Jocelyn, her unique scent of lavender and summer sunshine, the taste of her lips, of their kiss. Maggie feels like her body is on fire. Fifteen years ago, Jocelyn had left. Jocelyn hadn’t been brave enough, and Maggie had forced herself not to feel this, not to want her so badly she could no longer see through the physical pain of it. It had almost killed her. Now that longing is tearing through her body again, a physical need so intense it is painful, and she cannot breathe through the pain, cannot see her way out of this without doing what she has wanted to do for so many years now it seems like she has always felt this way, _wanted_ this way. And she’s scared. She doesn’t know what Jocelyn wants from this, doesn’t know if Jocelyn, closeted all her life, fully understands the consequences of this. But her body is letting her mind down by reacting of its own accord, desire pooling hot and white in her core, radiating out through the pain, Jocelyn’s nearness, Jocelyn’s closeness, Jocelyn’s fingers carding through her hair.

Holding Maggie’s gaze, Jocelyn sees something shift in her eyes, some decision made. The setting sunlight catches Maggie’s eyes, Maggie’s hair, sparkles pink and gold. She looks like an angel, thinks Jocelyn, my angel, my angel who has brought me back into the world. Jocelyn runs her fingers gently through the back of Maggie’s hair, holding her close, looks down to her lips, back to her eyes, questioning, willing Maggie to tell her what she wants. Uncertain of the response, she meets Maggie’s lips when she leans towards her, kisses her softly, slowly. Jocelyn tries to convey everything she feels right now, everything she struggles to find words to explain. Everything that says “I love you”, “I want you”, “I’m sorry”.

When they break apart this time they’ve shifted together. Maggie’s knees curled to the side to bring their bodies closer, Jocelyn’s raised leg leaning into Maggie – protectively, thinks Maggie, feeling a rush of warmth and affection through the physical pain of her desire. She looks down from Jocelyn’s eyes and runs her fingers along the outer seam of Jocelyn’s trousers, up her thigh, looking back to see her eyes darken in response. Still running her fingers along Jocelyn’s thigh and holding her gaze, she runs her other hand from Jocelyn’s shoulder down her chest between her breasts, feels her stomach muscles tighten as she trails her fingers across her belly and under her jacket onto her hip, splaying her fingers and tugging their bodies together, so close Jocelyn’s breasts graze against the wool of her polo and she gasps softly. The feel of Maggie’s breasts almost against hers, so close she can feel the pressure of them without physically feeling them, is overwhelming. She knows exactly what she’s doing, thinks Jocelyn, tightening her fingers into Maggie’s hair and pulling her towards her, and it’s such a turn-on. Maggie moans into her mouth when Jocelyn tightens her grip in her hair, tipping her head back and forcing her mouth to open wider, her tongue deeper, their breasts grazing. Maggie loves Jocelyn like this, dominant, assertive, has imagined what it would feel like to lose control to this.

To finally, lose control to this.

Maggie moans again when she feels Jocelyn’s other hand between her shoulder blades, pushing their breasts together, pushes their bellies together, puts both hands flat on Jocelyn’s hips to pull her even closer. Surrounded by Jocelyn, tasting Jocelyn like this, she loses all sense of herself, all sense of the pain she has lived with for so long. There is only this woman, and her desire for her, and this desire being met, finally.

Maggie has no idea how long they kiss but when Jocelyn pulls back she misses the contact immediately. It’s dark, and the breeze that had cooled the sunlight is now chilly against her skin. She shivers, from the cold or the loss of Jocelyn so close, she’s not certain. She’s struggling to think through the desire fizzing through her body, feels like tendrils of electricity are running out her finger tips.

Jocelyn looks at her gently, cups her face in her hands, strokes her fingers gently down her cheeks. “Stay the night? With me?”

She seems to sense Maggie’s hesitation – _is it hesitation?_ – and says softly, so softly Maggie has to really listen to hear her, “I have spent the evening kissing you in a public place where anyone could have walk passed, and probably did for all I know. I would say that makes me no longer closeted and very much public about how I feel about you.” Jocelyn looks down, as if uncertain about voicing the rest of her thought, “... how serious I am about you.”

Jocelyn doesn’t realise she’s holding her breath until Maggie leans into her hands and smiles, her blue eyes glistening with tears. “I’m so sorry for all the hurt and pain I must have caused you.” Jocelyn exhales into the words, still so softly Maggie can feel the emotions rather than hear what Jocelyn is saying. “Please let me spend the rest of our lives making it up to you, to show you I am brave enough ... for you ...”

Maggie kisses her, softly, chastely, her contact warm against the cold. When she pulls back she smiles, and Jocelyn can see her eyes in the dark, trails her fingers along her neck and down her arms, savouring how near her skin is beneath her cardigan, kisses the silent tears falling down her face.

“We would need to talk more.”

Jocelyn nods, not quite sure which part of what she said that is an answer to. Maggie turns away from her to look out over the darkening sea, the last of the light at the very edge of the night sky. The wind is blowing her errant hair into her eyes. Jocelyn wants to reach out and tuck it behind her ears, reach out and touch her skin, but doesn’t, afraid she’ll break the moment Maggie needs. She doesn’t wipe at her wet cheeks but she no longer seems to be crying.

“Yes.” She turns back to look at Jocelyn, to gauge her reaction. “To both.”

“Both?”

Maggie laughs and rolls her eyes, suddenly feeling the tension she hadn’t realised she was holding leave her body. Her usually reticent barrister is back to being reticent, and she doesn’t know where her own sudden confidence, where both of their sudden confidence, is coming from. She runs her fingers lightly down Jocelyn’s arms to where her hands have settled on her hips and interlaces their fingers, bringing both of Jocelyn’s hands up to her lips and, holding her eyes, kisses where their fingers have intertwined, brushes the backs of their hands against her tear-streaked cheeks.

“Yes I will spend the night with you,” and, making sure she holds Jocelyn’s gaze, “yes to the rest of my life.”

She cannot quite read the emotion that passes through Jocelyn’s eyes when she says that – _surprise? confusion? relief? something ... threaded through with love_ – but then Jocelyn smiles and pushes herself up onto her feet stiffly, holds out her hand to help Maggie, and Maggie feels an acceptance between them that hadn’t been there before. Standing, Jocelyn wraps her arms around Maggie, pulls their bodies flush, feels her warmth, the nearness of this body she has longed for for so long.

“Jocelyn?” Maggie’s arms slip around her waist, under her jacket for warmth, her voice muffled against Jocelyn’s shoulder. She breathes into the desire still ripping through her body, grounding the pain in Jocelyn’s closeness, Jocelyn’s skin.

“Mmm..?”

“Please don’t wait too long to ask me.”

Jocelyn chuckles quietly, smoothes Maggie’s hair. Maggie feels her head move in a silent nod. “Let’s get ourselves home first.” She rubs her hands up and down Maggie’s back in an effort to warm her, and Maggie smiles to herself at the care. Outside of the courtroom, Jocelyn communicates much better with actions than words.

“Body recovered from sitting for so long?” When Maggie nods, Jocelyn reluctantly lets her go. Maggie puts on her coat against the now chilly night, and they pack up quickly against the wind, Jocelyn leading Maggie back up the hill to the house hand-in-hand.


	2. Lovers, finally

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note the rating change. Definitely NSFW – didn’t intend it like this, it got a life of its own very quickly.

They hadn’t said a word on the short walk back to the house. Once inside, Jocelyn had taken Maggie’s coat, silently taken her hand and led her barefoot up the stairs. She could feel the warmth of their hands, hear Jocelyn’s nearness as she silently led her through the passage to the back of the house, watched pale slivers of light from the newly risen moon break through the unclosed rooms. The house was surprisingly warm. Random patches of white light pooled onto the dark wooden floorboards, ghosting Jocelyn’s hair in silver. Her bedroom faced the ocean, she knew that, large double glass doors led out onto the balcony, the pale moonlight beginning to glint off the water and light the room.

Now, when Jocelyn stops at the side of the bed, Maggie pulls her into her to kiss her, slowly, long, deep, entwines their fingers and threads her other hand through her hair. She’s too old to play games, too old not to take what she wants when the universe gives it to her. She feels Jocelyn’s hands come up to her waist, steadying her, pulling her closer. Jocelyn opens her mouth to her and she takes it, fifteen years of pent up desire and longing beginning to unwound inside her, runs her tongue inside her mouth, exploring, tasting. She feels Jocelyn wrap her arms around her shoulders, tugs at her hair in an effort to get them closer, wraps her other arm around Jocelyn’s waist, relishing kissing her like this. It’s not like on the hill, where someone could have walked passed and seen them. This, this is different. Raw. Private. _Theirs._

When Jocelyn breaks the kiss Maggie is confused, feels the loss of her heat against her, meets Jocelyn’s eyes to see her looking at her intently, tenderness across her features. Love, thinks Maggie, as Jocelyn uses her arms around her to pull her into another kiss. Soft this time. Slow. Delicate. Maggie feels giddy. The desire she has denied for years like fire tearing through her body. Brutal, searing pain, need, churning the white ball of relief and pleasure that has been growing in her core since Jocelyn kissed her. _Not even two hours ago_. She buries both her hands deep in Jocelyn’s hair as she kisses her way along Maggie’s jaw to the soft spot just below her ear, one hand gripping Maggie’s hair to pull her head back to allow her better access, the other pressed into her back, holding them together. Maggie feels Jocelyn pull her head to the side to run her tongue down her neck, along the soft curve of the hollow before sucking the skin just to the side of the pulse point. She grips deeper into Jocelyn’s hair as her mind’s last controls break down, feels her knees buckle against Jocelyn and her arm around her the only thing holding her up.

Jocelyn trails wet, open-mouthed kisses down Maggie’s collarbones, biting Maggie’s skin into the collar of her shirt, moving the material with her mouth. Maggie senses her frustration as she is held back from going further, deeper. She holds into Jocelyn’s hair tighter, willing herself to remain upright as she feels Jocelyn’s hands leave her hips to undo the buttons of her blouse. Her long elegant fingers move the material aside as she has more and more space to kiss Maggie’s skin, deeper into her body, taste the salt of the sea and the smell of the grass they had been sitting on. She feels the frustration again when her buttoned cardigan prevents Jocelyn from completely unbuttoning her blouse, pulls her hands into her to undo them, to assist, but Jocelyn grabs her wrists with a grip that hurts. That leaves bruises, thinks Maggie somewhere in the dim recesses of her brain under the desire flooding through her. Her long fingers easily circle Maggie’s wrists, tighten, force her hands down to her sides. Maggie makes to move but Jocelyn’s grip tightens further, forces her hands down again, her mouth moving to kiss Maggie passionately, forcibly, pushing her tongue into her mouth as she lets go of Maggie’s wrists and undoes the last of the buttons. When her hands move up to Maggie’s shoulders she pushes off both items roughly, kissing along Maggie’s now exposed skin, running her tongue down beneath Maggie’s bra strap into the lace of the cup.

Maggie reaches both her hands into Jocelyn’s hair, encouraging her, steadying her, pulls her up to kiss her, wants to taste her, all of her, the only thing appeasing the pain right now Jocelyn’s closeness, Jocelyn’s nearness, Jocelyn’s skin. Jocelyn _inside_ somehow, but her brain can’t think that far ahead, can’t think at all really. The only thing she’s aware of right now is Jocelyn’s smell in her hair, her taste in her mouth, her hands on her bare back, tugging her closer and closer and closer still, every nerve ending in her body on fire. _Has it always been like this?_

Jocelyn puts her hands on Maggie’s hips and pushes into her, contracting and then expanding the tight, white-hot coil of desire at Maggie’s core. Maggie moves her hands to pull roughly at Jocelyn’s cardigan, trying in her befuddled brain to pull it off, Jocelyn moving her arms to help her as she tosses it to the floor. She runs the palms of her hands flat down Jocelyn’s back and grabs the edge of her wool polo, making to pull it up, but Jocelyn steps back out her arms and the loss of contact is immediate, the cold air seeping into the space between them and Maggie can barely stand, her breath coming in short sharp ragged gasps as she looks at the woman standing before her now just out of reach.

_What the fuck?_

Jocelyn holds Maggie’s gaze as she takes the edge of her polo and pulls it up over her head, causing Maggie to gasp audibly. When she looks back at her, Maggie can see her eyes are dark with arousal, pupils blown black and full. The emotion in her eyes is one of absolute control. Tenderness, yes, love, yes, fulfilment, yes. Absolute control. The first thing she noticed the first time she saw Jocelyn, all those years ago. She knows now it’s when she fell in love. Maggie suddenly understands Jocelyn has been in control of this from the start, very much in control, and Maggie _likes_ this, _want_ s this, feels herself surrender to this as Jocelyn moves towards her, encircling her hands around her back to unclip her bra, never breaking eye contact, looking at her, watching her, every move assessing her reaction, how far she is prepared to go, how much she is prepared to give.

 _All of it_ , Maggie feels rather than thinks as Jocelyn slides her bra off her shoulders, reaches down the centimetres between them to unbutton her trousers, her eyes never leaving Maggie’s. Her actions saying what Maggie knows she cannot put into words, “I want you”, “I need you”, “this is _my_ pleasure”. Her fingers graze Maggie’s bare hips as Jocelyn tugs her trousers and knickers down together, Maggie blindly kicking them away as they fall to the floor.

She feels Jocelyn’s eyes rake over her as a physical sensation. Feels rather than sees Jocelyn’s hands moving in the space between them to unhook the front clasp of her own bra, slides it off her shoulders while her eyes, pure black, never leave Maggie’s. Feels a pressure give way in the space between them as Jocelyn unbuttons her own trousers, pulls her knickers down too as she steps out of them, not even bothering to kick them away as she steps toward Maggie, their bodies flush, breaths ragged, feels the physical heat between them. Maggie feels Jocelyn’s fingers before they reach her finger tips. Feels them move up to lightly stroke the skin of the back of her hand, turns her hand to entwine their fingers. Feels herself closing her eyes but not wanting to as Jocelyn kisses her, softly, slowly, languidly, urgently, all at the same time. Maggie cannot stand and moves her hands to grip Jocelyn’s hair, feeling her arms wrap around her waist, hands firm on her back, steadying her, holding her upright. The pain in her body is concentrated skin-on-skin, the rub of their nipples as they kiss, the slight swell of their bellies where they curve together. The pain abates wherever Jocelyn runs her hands, wherever they touch, leaving tendrils of screaming fire in the spaces against her skin.

She feels Jocelyn scrape blunt nails across her back, so aroused she hears the nails scrape the skin. The room smells of sex, of lavender, sea salt, _Jocelyn_ , smells the orange burning of her own desire fuelling off her. Feels herself manoeuvred around and the back of her legs hit the bed, Jocelyn pushing her down, flat made-up sheets on her back. Feels the hot weight of Jocelyn sink into her, their bodies flush, Jocelyn’s thigh pushing deep into her core, feels her tighten her fingers in Jocelyn’s hair, her mouth pushing her into the pillows as Jocelyn pushes the kiss deeper. Feels the waves start at the edge of her consciousness as Jocelyn’s hand cups her mons, breathing in her gasp as one long finger reaches out to separate her folds. Is only just aware of Jocelyn stretching the hand away and the sound of a drawer, the flip of a bottle cap, and a delicious, smooth coldness as Jocelyn’s fingers reach back into her to slowly stroke her sex and Maggie begins to move her body with the waves.

She feels Jocelyn’s wetness on her thigh and reaches between them when Jocelyn stops, uses both her hands to pin Maggie’s arms above her head, curling one long hand around both her bruised wrists, watching her. Still, for one moment. Holding her gaze, Jocelyn moves her lubricated hand between them again and strokes her fingertips down Maggie’s clit, watching, the wave of pleasure that sears through her consciousness bucking her hips into Jocelyn’s hand involuntarily, wraps her leg not pinned down around Jocelyn’s hips. _God_. Her eyes close again when Jocelyn kisses her gently, tenderness spiralling through the pain as she moves her fingers up and down Maggie’s sex, building the waves that begin to ripple through her consciousness, until her world is Jocelyn’s lips and Jocelyn’s hand, feeling two fingers, then three slip inside her. Her body, her control, her everything Jocelyn, surrounded by Jocelyn, holding herself on the precipice of this so that everything can be Jocelyn, always Jocelyn, until Jocelyn’s thumb pushes down hard on her clit and she screams – she knows she screams – into waves of cascading pleasure and she is aware of the pain in her body breaking, shattering, and a wave of light running through it from the dark centre of her orgasm, arching her back into the waves of pulsating pleasure from Jocelyn’s still moving hand.

Aware Jocelyn is kissing her neck, aftershocks of her orgasm still wracking through her, as she withdraws her fingers to rest on Maggie’s pulsating clit, gently circling until the aftershocks begin to collect into waves again and Maggie feels her body begin to rock with Jocelyn’s, collecting the waves as they kiss. She moves one of her hands from out of Jocelyn’s grip and into her hair and Jocelyn doesn’t stop her, pushes her thigh as deep as it can go into Jocelyn’s core, entwines her other hand with the hand holding Jocelyn above her, taking some of the weight, melts into the ease of their bodies together, knows even through her haze of aftershocks and rekindled desire that they come together, long, slow, breathing into each other. Lovers, finally.


	3. Waking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos and comments! This is my first fanfic (my first time writing) and they mean a lot. I really struggled with this chapter. I’m still not happy with it, but I need to move on – I hope it’s ok.  
> NSFW again.

When Maggie wakes it’s still dark. Jocelyn’s arms are tight around her. Her breasts pressed into her back. Her fingertips tracing long, slow circles into her skin. Maggie keeps her eyes closed and breathes into Jocelyn, her warmth, her nearness. Into the absolute happiness of being so close. Desire still rages through her but she wants to keep it, just a little, in this safe, warm, dark place. Then Jocelyn’s fingers brush down into the apex of her thighs, blunt nails slowly carding through the curls and Maggie is pulled out of the darkness, her desire breaking through her skin. She stretches up into her, allows Jocelyn’s fingers to card deeper. She feels Jocelyn smile as she kisses Maggie’s shoulder, running a trail of long, wet, slow kisses up into her neck, breathing in her hair.

“You’re beautiful,” she whispers.

Maggie’s mind collapses as her desire roars up white through her. She reaches into Jocelyn’s hair and meets her lips, turning round in her arms as Jocelyn opens her mouth to her. She pushes her body up into Jocelyn to bring their breasts together. Moans softly when Jocelyn pins her down into the bed instead, her weight hot on top of her, runs her hand up Maggie’s side and over her breast before entwining their hands above her head, holding her down and kissing her hard. She opens her legs when Jocelyn pushes her hips down between Maggie’s thighs, wraps them round her when Jocelyn opens her own legs and forces them up, digging her heels into the small of Jocelyn’s back, pulling her closer.

She surrenders to Jocelyn’s absolute control of this. Surrenders everything to her, as she knew she would. Jocelyn thrusts two fingers deep inside her and somewhere under the desire raging through her Maggie is surprised she’s wet. She grips her neck to pull her closer, runs her nails across Jocelyn’s scalp, pushes her tongue deeper into Jocelyn’s mouth as Jocelyn thrusts again. Hard. Then harder. Each thrust hitting deep into her clit. It’s hot and sweaty and desperate and Maggie doesn’t care. She just wants, she just finally _wants_.

She loses herself to each thrust, to the taste of Jocelyn, to the smell of Jocelyn, to the waves of pleasure from Jocelyn’s hand slowly breaking over her. To the utter joy that this is, finally, Jocelyn. Deeper and deeper and deeper, until she can’t take anymore and arches her back into Jocelyn’s fingers curling inside her, Jocelyn’s blunt nails scraping her inner walls, the palm of Jocelyn’s hand hard on her clit, forcing her orgasm to come and come and come. She feels Jocelyn bite down into her neck as she orgasms with her, hands gripping her hair and tugging roughly to kiss the skin, teeth scraping across her scalp. The orgasm thrusts Jocelyn’s body hard into Maggie, Jocelyn’s hand deeper into Maggie. Bright light slams into her as she tangles her hands into Jocelyn’s hair to kiss her, wraps herself around her, breathes into her as her orgasm hits her again, not wanting to ever let her go.

Maggie wakes the second time to pale grey light seeping through the open curtains. She breathes slowly, deeply, into the warmth of Jocelyn curled into her side, her arms around her, the feel of her still hot and wet between her legs. She cards her fingers through Jocelyn’s hair, turns into her to breathe her scent. She can’t quite believe she’s here. She feels like she is still on the hill, Jocelyn pouring her red wine and just about to kiss her. Somewhere between then and now is an intensity that overwhelms her.

“You don’t let me touch you.”

It’s not a question. She had wanted it to not be a question.

“I do.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

Jocelyn doesn’t open her eyes.

“Do we have to talk about this now?”

“Yes.”

Maggie breathes softly, brushes her lips into the smell of Jocelyn’s hair. The soft feel of her _want_ for this woman flows through her. She needs to talk about this.

“You’ve had lovers before, that is obvious.”

Maggie is actually surprised at this. She hadn’t seen anything over the years that showed Jocelyn explored her sexuality.

Jocelyn is silent for a long time. So long, Maggie begins to think she won’t answer. Then she opens her eyes and looks deep into Maggie, reaches for her hand, strokes her fingers over Maggie’s wrist. Maggie sees them then. Finger marks, dark and deep into the pale underside of her skin. _Oh_.

“I let you touch me, Maggie.”

She says it so softly Maggie feels the breath of it rather than the words. She inhales deeply, holds the feel of Jocelyn into her skin, the smell of their sex. She allows her encyclopaedic mind to gather the pieces of her thought with each breath, waiting as each piece methodically slots into place.

“You didn’t let them touch you, did you?”

More pieces, the thoughts cohering, and Maggie’s hand stills in Jocelyn’s hair as she realises.

“You tied them up.” It’s not a question. It’s not something that can be a question. It’s too evident from how Jocelyn is with her. “You tied their hands.”

“I fail to see how this is relevant.”

Jocelyn pulls out her arms and sits on the side of the bed. The loss of contact is immediate, cold, and Maggie feels the familiar pain threaten on the outskirts of her skin. She moves to sit beside her, strokes her hair softly. She hadn’t expected this. Nor had she expected the overwhelming surge of love so deep in her chest.

“Petal?”

She puts her arms around Jocelyn gently, kisses her shoulder, rubs her cheek against her skin.

“My darling?”

Jocelyn looks up at that, and Maggie sees a look of pure anguish cross her face. For one moment, her compartments are completely down, and Maggie thinks how young she looks, realises then how young she _is_ in some ways. Jocelyn, literally, came out yesterday. She’s yet to know the damage that has come from a lifetime of hiding.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she says quietly. “Nothing about any of this is wrong.”

Jocelyn looks at Maggie for a long time, searching her eyes. She traces her fingertips over Maggie’s face, her eyes, her cheekbones, her lips. Then kisses her gently, brushing her lips against Maggie’s skin and Maggie feels her body relax in her arms.

“Yes.” She nods imperceptibly. “I’m old enough to know that.”

She brushes Maggie’s lips again gently and pushes them back down into the bed, enveloping her in her arms and just holding her.

“They were never lovers, Maggie. I wanted ... I wanted them to be you. But they weren’t.” She feels Jocelyn shrug against her skin. “It didn’t work if they touched me.”

Maggie has a sense of all the times she had lain in bed in the dark, watching the ceiling as sleep eluded her and she thought about Jocelyn. Her confusion and grief at the loss of the woman she had thought, no she _knew_ , was her one. Why the universe had shown her what she could have had, only to take it away. She had learnt to live with it. Had learnt to live with the pain of pushing her desire back down into her body, believing it gone. An uneasy sort of truce that broke when her desire rose uncontained through the sleepless dark and her body betrayed her. Jocelyn’s hands. Jocelyn’s hair. Jocelyn’s taste. As the years passed, her late-night thoughts changed to moments of quiet domesticity. When she would turn over in bed and find it wasn’t Jocelyn lying next to her, and what she had allowed to be exposed in her heart would break. She realises now that Jocelyn must have done the same, and Maggie feels that overwhelming love surge from an even deeper place in her chest. She looks at Jocelyn and sees it mirrored in her eyes.

Jocelyn tangles her hand in her hair and pulls her into her to kiss her. “It really doesn’t matter now,” she says quietly.


	4. Deliberation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably NSFW again.

It’s late by the time Maggie makes her way up Briar Cliff. She’s spent all day at court, waiting as the jury deliberates, and has been late putting this week’s paper to bed. She’s found the decisions she now needs to make as editor, today especially, cumbersome and disheartening, fully aware that a verdict tomorrow will make their front page obsolete. Online will save them, it always does, but in a way that only makes the decisions worse, and her beloved paper as irrelevant as what the corporates and business models seem so fond nowadays of telling her. She sighs deeply as she pulls into Jocelyn’s driveway. The house is dark. Jocelyn had said to wake her, and Maggie wants her more than anything right now. She finds the key under a flower pot and lets herself in the front door, dropping her bag and coat where she stands before padding barefoot up the stairs to Jocelyn’s bedroom.

Jocelyn is smoking on the balcony of the dark room. Maggie feels a wild longing so intense her breath is knocked out of her and she leans against the doorframe for support. Jocelyn’s lithe, beautiful figure leans against the rail, her dressing gown open to silk pyjamas. She looks out at the ocean, still but for the cigarette, clearly deep in thought. Moonlight shines silver on her hair, shimmers off her skin giving her a waif-like, ethereal presence, captures her long, elegant fingers and ghosts her lips as she smokes. _God, she’s beautiful_ , thinks Maggie, watching her. One moment captured in time, utterly still. Maggie wants to imprint it into her forever.

She feels the magnetic strength of their connection pull deep at her chest. It’s as if Jocelyn senses it too, for she turns to look at her, unwavering blue eyes regarding her thoughtfully as she takes another drag of her cigarette. Maggie is moving towards her before she realises she is, mesmerised by the blue eyes watching her, physically wants to close the distance until she can smell her, touch her, taste her. Driven by her senses, by a desire that now they’ve acknowledged it she doesn’t want to contain.

She leans between Jocelyn’s legs, slips her arms under her dressing gown to feel the soft silk of her pyjamas beneath her hands, then the softer warmth of Jocelyn’s skin, and buries her face into her neck. She breathes in deeply, feels the tiredness in her body drain out of her at the nearness, the closeness, of what she has wanted all day, kisses into Jocelyn’s skin and runs her tongue up into the soft skin below her ear. She tastes of sea salt. There’s so much going on – the trial, the declining industry she has given her life to, the funeral Jocelyn had opened up to her at only to just as suddenly shut her out again, the sudden tidal wave of fifteen years of emotion released when they kissed yesterday. She feels like she’s still catching up. It’s easier just to be here, in the quiet silver of the dark, pressed into the warmth of the woman she can, finally, say she loves.

Jocelyn kisses her hair gently.

“Long day?”

“Mmm...”

She takes a final drag of her cigarette before stubbing it out, wraps both her arms around Maggie and rests her chin on her hair, moving her thighs more firmly around her. Protectively, thinks Maggie, but I won’t tell her I know that, not yet.

“I’ve wanted to do this all day,” says Jocelyn quietly.

“It was like this the first time I saw you in court.”

Jocelyn looks at her curiously.

“You took my breath away.”

“Even then?”

“Definitely then.”

Jocelyn wraps her arms tighter around Maggie.

“You were very ... distracting, sitting there, watching.”

Maggie kisses her neck gently, slowly running her lips into the soft curve of her throat.

“You still are.”

Jocelyn pulls her back to kiss her. Slowly, languidly, with a longing Maggie feels mirrored deep within her. She opens her mouth to her, that delicious, all-encompassing moment when she tells Jocelyn she wants more, needs more, always _more_ , and Jocelyn responds. Pulls her tighter into her as the white coil of desire deep within her core fans out, warm into her fingertips, her breasts, her lips. _God, she wants her_. She cards her hand into her hair to pull her still closer, her mouth deeper, bringing their breasts together to relieve the ache. Pushes her hips up into Jocelyn, pulling them together, tendrils of her desire coiling around them, white gossamer threads between then and now, bridging years of what Maggie is beginning to understand as overwhelming sadness. Suddenly she can’t breathe. She inhales ragged gasping breaths as their lips brush, rests her forehead against Jocelyn’s, tries to think through the emotions suddenly surging through her body.

“It’s very ...”

Jocelyn’s breath on her skin is as shallow and ragged as her own. Maggie waits. Jocelyn will continue a conversation but seldom initiate it, and Maggie has learnt over the years to listen when she does.

“... overwhelming?”

Maggie gently cups Jocelyn’s jaw, kissing her softly. She looks as young as she did this morning, she thinks. _And she feels this too_. Fifteen years suppressed like a pressure cooker suddenly released. Maggie is beginning to wonder what the consequences are now that the lid is off.

“It’s not usually this intense.”

“It’s not?”

“No.”

Jocelyn nods, looks out to sea, as thoughtful as she was when Maggie walked into the room and saw her smoking, unable to breathe at her beauty.

“You’re the only woman, the only person, I’ve ever loved, Maggie. The only one I have wanted to be with. I don’t have anything to compare it to.” She strokes Maggie’s hair and Maggie feels the tenderness as a physical sensation slowly sinking into her skin. “And I want ...”

When she doesn’t speak for a while, Maggie asks softly, “What do you want, Jocelyn?”

Jocelyn looks at her then, and Maggie sees her eyes darken, blacker than the night around them. Her body wants to burst with what she feels for her. She wants to say, _I love you now like I loved you then_ , but she doesn’t. She hasn’t, she realises, told Jocelyn how she feels. Despite Jocelyn, usually so guarded, admitting she loves her, admitting she had loved her all this time. Despite the immensity of Maggie committing the rest of her life to her in the space of a moment. She knows she will surrender to Jocelyn for the rest of her life. She knew that when they met. But telling Jocelyn would make it real and right now, she’s too overwhelmed by the strength of what is happening to find it real.

“What do you want, my darling?”

Jocelyn brushes her lips against the shell of Maggie’s ear.

“Go to bed,” she whispers.

Maggie regards her for a moment. Intensity, now quiet, between them. She turns back through the French doors into the room and the en suite. The toothbrush and make-up wipes Jocelyn had left out for her this morning are still on the sink, and Maggie feels the happiness she has felt since Jocelyn kissed her on the hill rise up deep in her chest. Small tokens of a life they could, possibly, live together. There is a deep pulsing between her legs, her body already alive, as if it is only alive under Jocelyn’s hands. She is hyper-aware of her skin, her aching desire to be touched, for Jocelyn to run her hands over her, everywhere, all of Maggie’s desire, before sinking her fingers deep inside her, and hers into Jocelyn, if she’ll let her.

She undresses in the room and leaves her clothes folded on the chair next to the bed, props herself up on the pillows as she watches Jocelyn close the French doors, leave the curtains open. Turn to her. Jocelyn holds Maggie’s gaze as she undresses, moonlight shining white off her skin, making her seem more ethereal, more surreal, more other-worldly. _God she’s beautiful,_ Maggie thinks again, and the white coil of desire deep within her unravels completely.

She reaches for her, pulls her into her to kiss her, Jocelyn pushing them down on the bed, wraps her arms around her to pull them together, bodies flush, legs entwined, thighs pressed into each other, opening their mouths to one another and kissing deeply. There’s no preamble, no awkwardness, no questioning, no wondering what they want, no deliberation. Maggie digs her hands deep into Jocelyn’s hair, scraping her slightly longer nails against her scalp, learnt last night that Jocelyn likes this. Runs her nails hard down Jocelyn’s back – learnt last night that Jocelyn _really_ likes this. _Leave marks_ , her eyes had said, and Maggie willingly does. Jocelyn moans into her mouth, runs her hands over her body, hungry, kisses Maggie harder. Maggie’s heart crashes into her chest when she realises Jocelyn is learning too, pulls their breasts together, their bellies, moving together, just the way Maggie likes it. Wet folds buried into each other, they kiss and kiss and kiss.

Jocelyn runs her hand up Maggie’s leg as she wraps it around her, thrusting her hips into her, Jocelyn’s hand on her ass to pull them into each other, rocking them into each other, each rock a bolt of friction deep between Maggie’s legs. Emotion floods her senses, the build up to her orgasm flooding her body. She’s not made love like this before, it’s always seemed too intimate. It _is_ intimate. It’s intense. It’s not sex, not arousal, not desire, but that too. It’s love, pouring out of her, pouring into her. She reaches up her fingertips to stroke Jocelyn’s face, to look at her, watch her, be watched by her, holding herself on the waves of her orgasm. _I’ve never loved anyone as I love you_. She pushes hard into Jocelyn, deep into Jocelyn. She’s close, her breath warm and ragged against Maggie’s skin.

“Together?” She’s not quite sure she’s said it out loud.

Jocelyn tangles her hand in her hair, kisses her hard, and Maggie loses all sense of everything.


	5. Beached

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continues from their last scene together (s2e8). Probably NSFW again.

“Do you think they’ll be strong enough?” They look at each other worriedly, lean in closer together. Jocelyn is quiet for a long time. She takes another swig of gin and passes the bottle back to Maggie.

“How do we do this in public?”

“Do what?”

“This. Us. How do we be?”

“We just be normal, I guess.”

“But that’s all changed.”

Maggie looks at Jocelyn, quiet for a moment. “Yes, I suppose it has.”

“Are you coming round tonight?”

“Seriously?” Maggie is suddenly furious again. “After having a go at me like that?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Did you just apologise to me?”

“Don't make a big deal out of it.”

“You know, that is only the second time in fifteen years you have apologised to me.”

“I said not to make a big deal out of it.”

“I’m not one of your compartments.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

Maggie waits. If this is going to be a battle of wills, she intends to win it. Eventually Jocelyn huffs.

“When I look at myself through your eyes, Maggie, I realise I have treated you terribly. And yet you still love me.”

This is not what she had been expecting.

“I haven’t said that yet.”

“It’s obvious.”

“You never said.”

Jocelyn shrugs. “I met you late in my life and there was no one before you. It’s hard, to accept a love one does not deserve.”

Maggie strokes her cheek gently, turns Jocelyn’s face to her. “It’s not something you earn, Jocelyn.”

“But it is something I have to be worthy of.”

Maggie kisses her softly. _And that, my love, is why you will always be worthy_.

“Mmm ... so this is how we are in public.”

“If you like.”

“I like.” Jocelyn kisses her again, strokes Maggie’s fine blonde hair through her fingers and then off her face affectionately. “But I’m scared too.”

“I know.” Maggie can smell herself on Jocelyn’s fingers, can feel the physical pull of her between her legs suddenly intensifying. “Would you like me to? Come round?”

Jocelyn accepts the bottle from Maggie and takes a swig. “I think I would like to get really drunk. I have red wine.” She leans into Maggie. “Really good red wine.”

“Then you’ll definitely need me.”

“I would always like you to.”

And Maggie feels the pull of her overwhelming.

“I’ll see you later,” she says, taking the bottle. “I’ll bring take away.”

“You don't need to feed me.”

“Seriously? You’re going to start that all over again?”

Maggie rolls her eyes, fury and aching want running in her side-by-side. “Do you actually have any food in that house of yours?”

Jocelyn doesn’t look at her.

“Absolutely bloody priceless.” She pushes her hair out her eyes and stands up. “I know this may surprise you, but I have wants and needs in my life that do not revolve around you. _I_ am going to bring food because _I_ want dinner.”

She stows the gin in her bag and slings it across her chest. “And breakfast.”

As she storms off, not as gracefully or quickly as she would like given the gin and the stony ground, she hears a small, quiet, “bollocks”.

When Maggie arrives at the house, she finds Jocelyn in the dining room, working on Jonah Bishop’s case files. She raises her eyebrows.

“Don't start Maggie Radcliffe.”

“I didn’t say a word.” She puts her hands on Jocelyn’s shoulders and kisses her hair. I like coming home like this, she thinks.

Jocelyn looks up at her. “I would like dinner though.”

 _She looks gorgeous in her reading glasses_.

“I am trying, Maggie.”

“I can see that, my darling. It’s raining so we’ll eat in the lounge if you like? I got Thai.”

Maggie sips her wine, looks out over the dark ocean through the large lounge windows. She had returned from a bathroom and e-cig break to find Jocelyn had simply brought several bottles through from the kitchen and left them open on the coffee table. “I’m too old to keep getting up,” she had said irritably. But then she had snuggled back into Maggie on the couch affectionately and put her arms around her, and Maggie had felt the pull of her nearness, the gloriousness of being so completely enveloped by her body, her skin softly fizzing everywhere they touched.

“When was the first time I apologised to you?”

“When you kissed me on the hill. Took my breath away.”

“I am sorry, you know.”

“I know.”

But Maggie also knows that she had desperately needed that apology. She wouldn’t have agreed to spend that first night with Jocelyn without it, or possibly any night with Jocelyn without it. She probably wouldn’t be here without it, wouldn’t be able to be finally resolving the past fifteen years without it. 

She leans out of Jocelyn slightly, watching her. Jocelyn has withdrawn again. Shut her out completely. Her arms around her but gone, looking out into the rainy darkness, sipping her wine, as deep in thought as she was on the balcony last night. She had cried in her arms after they had made love. Great wracking sobs of emotion. And Maggie had kissed her as she had cried silent tears of her own, wrapped her arms around her and held her into the small, silent hours of the morning, stroking her hair off her face and whispering as the sobs wracking her body had become quiet weeping, then an exhausted sleep, and long after that. Holding her through the darkness, Watching over her. Watching her. Just watching her.

Sometimes Maggie was allowed in. Jocelyn met her so much. Emotionally, physically, intellectually, sexually, they were equals. A balance Maggie had rarely encountered in her life. Yet sometimes it seemed Jocelyn didn’t meet her at all and Maggie floundered in the unexpected space between them. She had had a subtle suspicion then, lying in the dark with the feel of Jocelyn so powerful in her arms, that Jocelyn communicated with her all the time, only Maggie didn’t know enough to meet her. Maggie suspected that a great deal of what attracted her to Jocelyn was this strange knowing her and not knowing her at the same time. Jocelyn met her. And then Jocelyn challenged her. It made her fascinating. There was clearly much more going on beneath the surface than Maggie had previously suspected or coaxed out of her, or Jocelyn herself, never good at finding words for her emotions, had been able to offer up and explain.

Maggie just wants to reach out and touch her. And Jocelyn meets her. Wraps her arms tighter around her to pull her deeper into her warmth, pulls the crochet throw off the back of the couch to wrap around them. Her head resting on Jocelyn’s shoulder, her arms around her, cuddling into her, Maggie feels safe and warm, and deeply in love. _Home_.

“My mum made this when I was at university.”

She must have dozed off. She seems to have lost the thread of the conversation.

“Margery? Really?”

“Her only attempt at crochet. She concluded she didn’t have the intellectual patience for it.”

Yes, thinks Maggie, reaching for her glass and snuggling back into Jocelyn. That is more like the Margery she knew.

“I’ve thought a lot, in the weeks before she died, and since she died especially, about what she would have thought about us.”

Maggie is struck by how young Jocelyn sounds. She sits up and puts her glass down carefully, not making eye contact. She knows she has to go very gently, very carefully with this.

“Jocelyn, she knew.”

“I don't understand.”

“Margery, your mum, she knew. About you. About us.”

“Oh.”

Jocelyn is quiet for a long time. Maggie takes her hand, is relieved when she isn’t pushed away. She waits.

“How do you ...? Did you tell her?”

There is no accusation in Jocelyn’s voice. She just sounds like a very small child beginning to realise she may be loved when she firmly believed she wouldn’t be.

Maggie strokes her thumb over Jocelyn’s fingers. The first time Margery had said anything, she and Maggie had been walking their usual route out along the cliffs. It was just before the dementia had really started to take hold, and around the time Maggie had negotiated the final details of the uneasy truce between herself and her body’s unrequited desire. The autumn day had outdone itself in its bleakness.

“My daughter, she’s like you isn’t she?”

Maggie had had no idea how to answer that, so she had just carried on walking.

“I don't need you to confirm it. I’ve seen the way she looks at you.”

Margery stopped, forcing Maggie to stop walking and face her. “And the way you look at her. When you allow yourselves to be together in the same place, that is.”

And Maggie, because she had no idea what to say to any of this, turned away and walked. In fact, she left Margery behind, and walked for hours and hours until she was so painfully exhausted she didn’t have to think about any of it.

The dementia took Margery soon after. Depending on what was going on at the paper, Maggie would sit with her for lunch or dinner at the home several times a week. By some complicit agreement they never talked about, Jocelyn did breakfast. One evening, Margery had gripped her hand with the vice-grip of the demented but had looked her in the eye lucidly. “My daughter loves you, Maggie.” But then she was gone again.

“She didn’t mind?”

“She loved you, Jocelyn.”

“She loved you too. In many ways, she treated you like another daughter.”

“You think so?”

“I’ve seen her will.”

Maggie looks up at Jocelyn and sees she is shedding silent tears. “Oh my darling.”

Sometime later, Maggie pulls Jocelyn into her. She is warm and happy and rather pleasantly drunk. _It really is good wine_.

“Lil told me too.”

“Is that why she left?”

“Well, I was beginning to realise it for myself as well.”

Jocelyn looks at her.

“She said I had obviously been in love for a very long time, and I needed to do something about it, one way or another. She was right.” Maggie had known Lil was right, but at the time she had been a little hurt that Lil could walk away so easily. Pretending she didn’t want – long for – Jocelyn, however, was suddenly no longer an option.

“You didn’t answer my question.” Jocelyn shares the last of the wine between them. She strokes her long fingers gently over Maggie’s before entwining their hands.

“We wanted different things I guess. She wanted me to move to the city so she didn’t have to commute, to possibly retire. It was what she wanted for me though, rather than what I wanted for myself.” Maggie kisses her. “And then you kissed me and I was forced to be honest with myself about what I wanted.”

Jocelyn is kissing her hair.

“Are you awake?”

She must have dozed off again.

“Mmm.” Her head is resting on Jocelyn’s chest, her body nestled into her. The pull of her is hot and white, strumming through her skin. “I can be.”

“Would you like to dance? With me?”

Jocelyn wraps her in her arms as she pulls her up off the couch and leads them, soft and slow. Maggie rests her head on her shoulder, breathes her in, breathes all this in. It’s so quiet. Slowly, deeply, she allows herself to fall into how much she loves her.

“You’re beautiful,” she says, touching her lips.

And then Jocelyn is kissing her. And Maggie is kissing her back. Her lips warm and fizzing, running her tongue into her mouth to kiss her deeper, to explore her, to _taste_ her. Red wine. Cigarettes. Sea salt. _Jocelyn_. Jocelyn’s hands sure over her body, running fire across her skin. Maggie giving herself to it, to this, to her. _Always to her_.

“I haven’t had enough time to explore your body,” Jocelyn says, unbuttoning her shirt, kissing down into her breasts.

“No, we haven’t.”

Maggie pulls her up into her and kisses her deeply. Her need for her is overwhelming. Jocelyn’s hand inside her bra, massaging her breast, runs the pad of her thumb hard over her nipple. Desire overwhelms Maggie, pushes her hips up into Jocelyn, unravelling the hot white need of Jocelyn, for Jocelyn, always Jocelyn, deep in her core.

 _God, just fuck me_.

“Jocelyn, we need to go to bed.”

Jocelyn pulls her down onto the bed as she kisses her. Her hands are everywhere on Maggie’s body, raging desire across her skin. Maggie cups her face between her hands to kiss her, keeps them together as Jocelyn climbs onto her, as she runs her hands over Maggie’s breasts and back into her bra, then her teeth, hard, biting down into the nipple. Maggie grips her fingers into Jocelyn’s hair, pushing her mouth into her, her teeth into the soft, sensitive skin. _I will never get tired of this_.

“Will you let me undress you?” Jocelyn’s breath is hot and ragged against her skin.

“Do you want to?”

“Yes.”

Her hands are tugging at Maggie’s trousers, pulling them off as she kisses her. Maggie pushes her body up into Jocelyn, runs her tongue into her mouth to kiss her deeper. _Want to explore her._ She rucks the wool of Jocelyn’s polo up her back so she can touch her warm skin, then meets her eyes as she takes hold of its edges.

“Is this ok?”

Maggie pulls it up over her head when Jocelyn nods. Kisses her again, trailing her tongue down into her neck, her sternum, the soft skin of her breasts, takes a nipple into her mouth through the lace of her bra and sucks gently. The feeling of being able to touch is overwhelming.

“No.”

Jocelyn pushes her back down onto the bed, pinning her arms above her head forcibly, her thigh hard and deep between Maggie’s legs. Watching her. Watching into her. Maggie is suddenly struggling to breathe. She gasps as Jocelyn trails her fingertips down her stomach, runs them along the lace of her knickers before slipping her fingers under the material and into her folds, gently circling Maggie’s clit. Just once.

“What are you going to do?” She can barely get the words out.

“Just this.”

Jocelyn brushes her cheek against Maggie’s, her lips against hers. Holding her gaze as she pushes her fingers deep into Maggie, gathering the wetness she finds there and spreading it slowly along her sex.

Then she begins to slowly circle her clit again.

 _Oh God_.

“I want to watch you.”


	6. Whither Thou Goest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all who have commented on this! I really appreciate the feedback and it gives me ideas about what to write.  
> I am indebted to kw20742’s superlative “Something Like Love” for Jocelyn and Maggie’s scents – Jocelyn of lavender and summer sunshine and Maggie of citrus. I loved the series, and it’s informing my head canon.

Maggie watched the rain. Lazy, grey, Sunday afternoon rain. This part of town was quiet on the weekends, the open area in front of the Echo offices deserted. Maggie was glad of the quiet, glad of the empty office too. It was too cold to work without turning on the radiators, but Maggie didn’t want to. Instead she’d taken her triple-shot coffee and leant against the large window at the front of the offices, her breath misting the cold glass, thinking. She needed to think. She needed space and time to be on her own right now. There was so much going on, and so much of it had spilt over these past few days – the trial, Margery’s death, and of course, Jocelyn.

But watching the rain, Maggie wasn't thinking of any of it. Maggie was thinking about her mother. How she came home from the factory floor and cooked as Maggie sat at their rough-hewn kitchen table doing her homework. Maggie, her youngest, and therefore still needing of her mother’s help. How she would wipe her thick, strong hands down the front of her apron, leaving long-shaped streaks against the blue serge that Maggie as a child would map out in her head. Then the smell of her father when he came home. Sweat. Soot. Heat. The thin traces of black permanently imprinted into the rough skin of his hands equally as fascinating. Maggie had grown up at that table. Her older siblings would rush off as soon as they were done, but Maggie would stay and read. She liked the quiet companionship of her mother when she was alone. As she grew older, she would read Jane Austen out loud to her and, later, the newspaper. Later still, she and her father would sit at that table and discuss politics in a way Maggie did not see him do with her brothers. Nor with any other woman. Her mother listened as she cooked. Maggie became a feminist at that table.

Her mother’s death was sudden but not unexpected – the cancer had ripped through her by the time the doctors had found it. It was Maggie’s first year at university. Her brothers had gone down the pit with her father. Her sister had married her coal miner sweetheart and borne grandchildren. Her mother may not have understood her wayward daughter – and they clashed often – but when Maggie stayed on to do her A levels, her mother would set down that evening’s bread and jam as Maggie did her homework and then sit with a cup of tea, talking about Maggie’s future, Maggie’s education. Maggie smiled tearfully. It had been more than forty years and she could still hear the soft lilt of the capital “E”. They had filled in her university application forms together. When Maggie won her place at Manchester, her father had talked about it for weeks. Her mother had simply read the letter and told her to go – and to never come back. Maggie had known, even if she hadn’t understood, that her mother wasn't referring to her family who were, always had been, unfailingly there for her. But to that town, that life, that Maggie was going to have something different.

 _Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee_... Maggie sniffed. She hadn’t realised she was crying. Hadn’t realised she had dipped quite so deeply into nostalgia that she was quoting Ruth. It was the rain, she thought. It made the world grey. She and the Man Upstairs had parted company a long time ago, but she had grown up reading the King James Bible and even she had to admit, albeit begrudgingly, it was beautifully written. She searched her pockets for a coffee napkin as she snuffled, and smiled again. Jocelyn always found it amusing that Maggie had an endless supply of paper napkins rather than tissues. She leant back against the glass, resting her cheek against the coldness. _For whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge..._

Maggie still had no idea how she felt about her mother. She had been far too young to realise her mother might have wanted something different for herself, far too young to get a sense of her as a woman, to see her as anything other than her mum. But she couldn’t go back. Couldn’t discover that woman. Her mother remained where she had always been – distant. Peeling potatoes and listening to her daughter’s homework at a shabby kitchen table in a cold, grey terraced house. Maggie could never quite connect. She had more of a sense of Margery. In many ways, Margery had been a mother to her as well as a friend, and Maggie had felt able to finally let go of the pain, the bloody, senseless cleave through her chest that was her mother’s death. Maggie missed Margery, but her passing was softer. She had been lost to dementia long before she had died. Maggie had had plenty of time to mourn her. And in her death, Margery had continued to give Maggie what she had needed – to be by her side, to be a part of it as she had been a part of her life.

Maggie wasn't sure if Jocelyn had known the depth of the friendship. She had never argued about Maggie visiting Margery at the home – and they had argued about pretty much everything else these past fifteen years. But never about Margery. Maggie had come close to it, the day of the funeral. Jocelyn’s words had cut right through her. But last night Jocelyn had come round to hers and made her dinner as an apology. The food had been simple – omelettes and salad – but good. Surprisingly good, given that in all the years they’d known each other Maggie had never seen Jocelyn actually cook, hadn’t even known she could cook. And then, as they had done every night since they had kissed on the hill, they spent the night together and Jocelyn had fucked Maggie senseless. _T_ _hy people shall be my people, and thy God will be my God..._

Jocelyn as a lover was like nothing Maggie had experienced before. Jocelyn as a lover was like nothing Maggie had _expected_. Jocelyn bit. Jocelyn scratched. Jocelyn left marks. Jocelyn left bruises. Being with Jocelyn was intense. Maggie’s body hurt. Jocelyn met Maggie’s needs as if she knew them as her own. And then she just carried on going. Maggie _wanted_ her. Her sexual need for her overwhelmed her. Her body ached for her. Desire fanned out from her core in waves, hot and white unbidden through her body. Her skin hummed. Every time she moved, she felt the deep, delicious pull of their lovemaking in her thighs. What happened between them wasn't like sex, of that Maggie was certain. She wasn't being shagged or fucked or screwed, or even made love to. Something happened that she couldn’t describe. Jocelyn simply moved Maggie’s body and Maggie’s body responded as if it was Jocelyn’s own.

Maggie knew Jocelyn was her last lover. However this worked out, Maggie couldn’t go back. She knew too that Jocelyn was her last love. Her only love. She had thought she had loved other women before her, but now that the emotional tsunami of the past fifteen years was breaking over her, flooding her, she knew she had been wrong. It had always been Jocelyn. Maggie knew she could no longer sleep without her, could no longer wake without her. They still had so much they needed to talk about. But Maggie really didn’t want to talk.

They needed to talk about last night. In many ways, last night was, well, last night. Like the night before, and the night before that, and the night before that. But what she had seen last night worried her. Little things. That put together became quite big things. How long Jocelyn took to find utensils in a kitchen she hadn’t used very often. How she paused before sitting down in an unfamiliar dining room. How she relied more on what her hands felt than on where her eyes were looking. How she ran her fingers along the passage walls as they went to bed as if she was counting doorways, orientating herself by touch. Maggie suspected Jocelyn’s eyesight was far worse than she was letting on, or far worse than she was admitting to herself. And that the only reason Maggie had noticed was because they had been in a place she knew well and Jocelyn didn’t. It meant Jocelyn needed a home environment she knew so well she could navigate it without seeing it. If they were going to do this, really do the “us” they were becoming, then Jocelyn would need to stay in the house on Briar Cliff and Maggie would need to be the one to move. But she couldn’t help the uneasy feeling that this put her on an unequal footing in the relationship right from the start. Couldn’t help but resent that she was going to have to give so much of her life up to Jocelyn before they had even really begun.

She had come into the office this afternoon for space, but working meant she had had to face the aftermath of the Danny Latimer trial. It had been hard on her, really hard. Hard on the Latimers, hard on the town, hard on Jocelyn, but she had helped them through it, was still helping them through it. It had reached the point where she felt like she was being torn apart. She was exhausted, stretched thinner than catgut. She needed to draw a line under it somehow, to move on from the crazy hours, the headlines, the op-eds and online comments. She seemed to be constantly working, or fielding 2am phone calls. Mostly from Beth, or Olly, or Lucy. But over these past few months, Maggie had also found herself sitting with Nige, and even on occasion Tom, into the small hours of the mornings.

She knew they needed someone they perceived as outside it all to talk to, and the requirements of her job – that she remain as neutral and objective as she could – maintained this impression for them. The truth however, was that she was just as caught up in it as everyone else, and it had played round and round in her head until she was exhausted. Maggie had learnt from covering the Yorkshire Ripper killings that reporting on these stories affected her, and she needed to look after herself. She still had nightmares about Peter Sutcliffe. She’d begun having nightmares about Joe Miller. Being part of the group that had banished Joe from Broadchurch yesterday, that had helped, and she was grateful to Paul for his knowing she had needed it.

Maggie, like Paul, didn’t have many people to talk to. They had begun meeting regularly for coffee at the cafe opposite the Echo, and she had found herself rather pleasantly surprised at the friendship slowly growing between them. Jocelyn had needed her throughout the trial of course, had needed her as she had rejoined the world, and Maggie knew that the bubble Jocelyn had been held in these past few weeks was about to burst. They weren’t talking about any of it yet, but Maggie felt safe with Jocelyn. Held. Loved. The only place she wanted to be right now was in bed, with Jocelyn, lying in her arms and loving her back.

Maggie wiped her wet cheeks with the back of her hand. Come on Petal, pull yourself together. She straightened, took a last sip on her now cold coffee, breathed out deeply. Lil would say requited love had made her maudlin. Both Margery and her mother would tell her to get on with it. Jocelyn would just kiss her. Maggie looked out at the rain. Jocelyn would smell like sunshine. It wasn't that a lot was happening. It was that a lot was ending, and something very important was beginning. Maggie felt the magnetic pull of her deep within her core. The universe had given her a gift she had thought she’d never have. She was going to hold onto it with both hands and not let go. _Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me..._ Maggie grabbed her jacket from the desk, slung her bag across her shoulders. She’d thought enough. She was going to go to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Bible quote is Ruth 1: 16-17: “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.”


	7. Your Body

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW.

The house is warm. Jocelyn has the radiators on. Maggie makes her way into the kitchen, leaves her jacket and bag on the counter. There are bananas in a bowl by the kettle. A loaf of bread out beside it. Maggie opens the fridge. It’s stocked. She looks up to see Jocelyn leaning against the doorframe, watching her. Desire, white-hot and aching, flares out through her. Her breasts swell for her hands.

“You bought food.”

“Don't make a big deal out of it.”

Maggie takes her outstretched hand, allows herself to be pulled into her. Jocelyn moving her hips to cant into hers softly. 

“I’m just saying I’m noticing.”

She leans into her. Her hair smells of lavender, sunshine. Jocelyn brushes her cheek against hers, then her lips. Kisses her deeply. Her tongue slow and gentle in Maggie’s mouth. Maggie feels Jocelyn’s need pull at her own as she begins to fall into her, to melt into her. The deep throb in her belly that drove her from the office to here expanding out into her body as Jocelyn grips the back of her hair, forcing her mouth wider, pulling the hot white liquid of Maggie’s core up through her. Maggie digging her fingers into her hair to steady herself. Pulling her closer. Surrendering to her. Raw, physical need. Pressing her hips deeper into Jocelyn, strong hands at the top of her thighs keeping them together. Jocelyn’s breath warm on her neck, whispering into her skin.

“Come to bed with me.”

Maggie pulls Jocelyn down onto the bed. Her tongue hot and wet and urgent in her mouth, her desperate need to be inside her somehow ripping Maggie’s skin apart. Jocelyn undresses them both and Maggie lets her, scrabbling her hands over Jocelyn’s bare skin as it’s exposed. She doesn’t have time. Desire fuels off her in waves. Her emotions are all over the place, intensity roaring through her. None of this makes any sense and Maggie doesn’t care. She needs her skin-on-skin, breast-on-breast, belly-on-belly. Jocelyn’s hands over her, collecting the hot liquid fire from deep within her core, spreading it out over her breaking skin. Jocelyn kissing her neck, the soft curve of her throat, her breasts, biting down into her stomach. Gripping her calves with a force that hurts, pulling Maggie down the bed, kneeling on the floor to kiss up the inside of her thighs, her teeth suddenly hard into the soft, pink skin of her folds. Maggie closes her eyes as Jocelyn’s tongue strokes the length of her sex, her breath hot on Maggie’s clit as she sighs deeply.

Jocelyn pulls again, and Maggie slides off the bed, feels the pull of their lovemaking in her thighs as she straddles her. She smiles down at her, her hair brushing Jocelyn’s skin, cups her hands either side of her face to kiss her eyes, her cheekbones, the corners of her mouth, then her mouth, softly.

“We need a pillow to do that.”

Kisses her again. Deeper. Tasting her. Tasting herself. Jocelyn reaches up to kiss her back, digs her nails into her back, bites down along the curves of her breasts. Licks over a nipple, then sucks with her teeth. Desire pools out from Maggie’s depths in thick, liquid waves. She reaches behind her for Jocelyn’s hand, puts it between her legs, brushes her lips against her cheek and exhales softly as she feels Jocelyn’s long, slender fingers push inside her.

“Do we need lube?”

“We might.”

“Don't leave me.”

Soft against her skin. Jocelyn has curled her fingers and she can barely get the words out.

“I won’t.”

Maggie slowly moving her hips against Jocelyn’s hand, watching her watch her. Watching this woman she can finally love like this, can finally show she loves like this. Planting soft kisses on her lips as she fucks her, runs her hands through her hair, then cups her jaw and kisses her deeply, waves of pleasure beginning to break into her consciousness, brushes her lips against the shell of her ear.

“I love you.”

She says it so softly, breathes it out, she wonders if she has said it out loud at all before her orgasm roars up and shatters her, Jocelyn thrusting hard into her as she comes. Gasping as Jocelyn keeps her fingers inside her, thumb gently stroking her clit, moving against Jocelyn’s body as she comes a second time. Soft. Breathing into her mouth. She feels like she is breaking. She feels like she is opening. Spasms clenching her body against Jocelyn’s hand and Jocelyn cradling her, Jocelyn stroking her hair.

“We need to move, Maggie, my love, my darling.”

Jocelyn kissing her neck, her shoulder, her breath warm in her ear before the lethargy.

“My knees are too old to make love on the floor.”

Maggie pushes herself up onto the bed, her clit pulsing, pulls Jocelyn up stiffly beside her. Strokes her fingertips over her body. Loving her. Comforting her. Desiring her. Her skin still humming. Knows they’re still going, her core fanning out in waves. Watches Jocelyn’s body respond to her. Watches Jocelyn. Takes Jocelyn’s hand and brings it to her mouth. Licks her palm. Her thumb. Her fingers. Tastes herself. Watches Jocelyn’s pupils blow. Cups her face with both her hands and kisses her deeply, her tongue in Jocelyn’s mouth so she can taste her. Jocelyn kissing her back, pushing her, forcing her tongue deeper.

Maggie moves up the bed and pulls Jocelyn onto her, arches her back into Jocelyn’s hand on her breast, Jocelyn’s hands on her body. Kisses her, opens her legs to her, fingers deep and strong, moving slowly inside her. Maggie’s nails down Jocelyn’s back, her muscles moving beneath her hands as she fucks her, warm and wet between her legs, digging her heels into her hips. Surrounded by the smell of her, the taste of her, losing herself to her. Her orgasm breaking through the edges of her. Tangles her hands through Jocelyn's hair, pulls her closer, opens her eyes to watch her.

“Come with me.”

Jocelyn biting her lips, her jaw, her neck, her chest. Fingers thrusting into her. Bright light bursting through her body. Her need rising up within Maggie to crack her open like a shell. Maggie can hear their wetness, the sweat on their bellies, between their thighs. Frantically clutching at Jocelyn’s back, Jocelyn’s shoulders, Jocelyn’s hair as she orgasms and Jocelyn simply thrusts harder, thrusts faster, thrusts deeper, entwines their hands above Maggie’s head and just carries on fucking her. Maggie cannot breathe. She opens her legs wider, scrambling for purchase beneath her, bucking her hips into her, scraping her nails through her hair. She feels like she is being split open. Jocelyn widening her. Jocelyn stretching her. Jocelyn riding her. Her body breaking. Scrapes her nails blindly into Jocelyn’s skin, grabbing fistfuls of sheet as wave after wave crashes into her. The fast approaching nothingness that comes after the light, and Jocelyn presses her thumb down hard onto the centre of Maggie’s clit.

Maggie doesn’t move. She can’t. She feels completely open

Boneless

Weightless

Clear

The weight of Jocelyn’s body holding her down.

She blinks slowly against the returning reality of the room. Jocelyn is looking down at her, concerned. Then she smiles. Kisses her softly.

“You blacked out.”

She rests her head on Maggie’s chest, runs her fingers down her arms and entwines their hands. Maggie is so clear she can see the colours tracing the skin. She takes slow, deep breaths. Steadies herself. Her legs are still wrapped around Jocelyn. The room smells of sex.

“That was...”

She swallows. She cannot talk. Not yet.

“Hmm...” Jocelyn looks up at her. “I noticed.”

Maggie strokes her hair. Breathes into the openness. Breathes into _her_.

“Did you come with me?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

She waits. Jocelyn doesn’t respond. Maggie shifts her body beneath her, presses her thigh lightly into Jocelyn’s core. Lifts her head to kiss her. Once. Twice. Cards her hands in her hair as Jocelyn opens to her, kissing her deeper.

“Come.”

Maggie begins to rock their bodies slowly. Slick wet on her thigh. Pushing deeper into Jocelyn’s core. Jocelyn holding herself above Maggie. Looking down at her. Watching her. Assessing her as she did that first night. Maggie feels the clearness through her, reaches up to give it to her. Her answer is the same. _I will give you everything_.

Maggie sees the decision in Jocelyn’s eyes. She is so open she is unprepared for the force that hits her. The emotions of her orgasm mirrored back at her as Jocelyn lets go. Jocelyn’s tongue in her mouth. Jocelyn biting her. Jocelyn fucking her. Rough. Urgent. Slamming her body into her. Her fingers inside her. Nails scraping her skin. Maggie wrapping herself around her in an effort to contain it, holding her as the emotions tear through her. But Jocelyn yanks Maggie’s hands above her head instead. Opening her. Exposing her. Grips into the bruised skin of her wrists as she returns her hand, hard and deep onto her clit. Making Maggie hers. Wrenching her apart. Her shell already broken to her overwhelming need, bright light coursing through her, watching Jocelyn break. Reaching up to kiss her, once, just once, before she shatters.

Jocelyn is holding her. Jocelyn is kissing her. Jocelyn is running her fingers down her spine. The lube inside her sticky and warm. Jocelyn is fucking her softly. Maggie sinks deeper into the pull still between her legs with each brush of their tongues. Her hands over the marks down her back, the curve of Jocelyn’s waist, the smooth skin of her hip. Stroking her fingers slowly along her thigh. Maggie is on fire. She feels like she has no skin. Jocelyn’s arms contain her. Jocelyn is inside her. Maggie understands now. She begins and ends in Jocelyn. The boundary of her body is Jocelyn’s skin.

“Have you had enough?”

Jocelyn watching her. Jocelyn stroking her face. Maggie opens her eyes to look at her. Jocelyn cradling her jaw, her pupils full with arousal. Brushing their lips to kiss her. Brushing their lips to kiss her deeper. Maggie tangling her hands in her hair and kissing her back. Softly, slowly, languidly. Asking. Her desire her whole being.

Jocelyn pushing her gently onto her back. Her hand on her thigh to pull her into her. Fingers curling through the edges of her folds. Maggie is lost. She reaches up and kisses her. Opens her legs to her. Arches her back to push Jocelyn’s fingers deeper inside her. Slowly moving their bodies together, kissing her gently. Deep into each other. Jocelyn curling her fingers so her nails scrape her walls. Maggie watches her, breathes into her, waves of colour and light breaking over them with each slow thrust. She digs her nails along Jocelyn’s scalp and kisses her, pulls her closer to her, pushes her thigh deeper. This final connection.

Maggie wakes. The room is dark. Jocelyn’s arms are tight around her, her breasts pressed into her back, their legs curled into each other. She smells like sex. Maggie snuggles deeper into her warmth, listening to the rain. She wants to keep this moment, lying in her arms. Jocelyn is the first lover Maggie has felt such a physical need for that she has to sleep entwined like this. Can only sleep entwined like this. She feels the quiet hum of their connection, every cell in her body aligned to Jocelyn. There really is no going back now. She understands this will settle down for her. But for Jocelyn it might not. Sex didn’t work like that for Jocelyn. Maggie stretches against her experimentally. Her body hurts. But that deep pain of repression has gone. Her body’s final pact with herself. She feels sated for the first time in fifteen years.

“Jocelyn,” she whispers softly. “I need to shower.”

Jocelyn’s arm tightens, pulling Maggie closer.

“Let me go, my darling.”

She manages to extricate herself without waking her fully, leans down to kiss her.

“I’m coming back.”

Maggie towels her hair. She’s used the guest bathroom so not to wake Jocelyn. She unhooks Jocelyn’s dressing gown from the back of the door and pads downstairs to the kitchen. The house is so quiet. So dark. She grabs her e-cig and jacket and lets herself out to smoke. She needs time to think. She watches the rain as she inhales deeply, the smoke blowing out into the darkness with each quiet breath out. The satin of the dressing gown is soft against her skin. Maggie brings the sleeve to her cheek and inhales deeply. _Jocelyn_. Maggie feels her love for her as a physical pain in her chest. So painful she feels she can break from it, _has_ broken from it. She can still smell their sex on her skin.

She makes her way back upstairs with a tray of cheese and pickle sandwiches and a pot of chamomile tea. Jocelyn is smoking on the balcony, a thick shawl over her silk pyjamas. She’s showered, her hair is still damp, her face bare of make-up. She looks beautiful, thinks Maggie, taking a moment to quietly watch her before setting the tray down on the bedside table and making the bed. Jocelyn stubs her cigarette out when she sees her, closes the French doors and curtains and comes into the room to help, propping herself up on the pillows when she’s done. She pulls Maggie down and wraps her legs around her tightly as she sits. Maggie’s body fizzes. She leans against her, her head on her shoulder, trying to get as much of their bodies touching as possible. She takes a bite of sandwich, closes her eyes. She is hungry. She breaks pieces off and feeds them to Jocelyn as she eats.

“Did you speak to Sharon yesterday?”

“You know I did.”

“When do you start?”

“How do you know she accepted?”

“Just a hunch.”

“Did I get Maggie Radcliffed?”

Maggie looks at her and smiles knowingly.

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Hmm...” Jocelyn kisses her fingers softly as she takes another piece. “Why are you feeding me? You don't need to feed me.”

“If I don't, are you going to eat?”

Jocelyn is silent. Maggie rolls her eyes, breaks off another piece.

“I thought so.”

“Where did you go this afternoon?”

The question is quiet. Maggie presses into her, trying to reassure her. She knows Jocelyn is uncertain. They haven’t talked about it, but Maggie knows Jocelyn is aware of her confusion at the suddenness of fifteen years of emotion unravelling inside of her. Knows that Jocelyn is experiencing something similar. Knows too that Jocelyn is aware something happened yesterday afternoon regarding Joe Miller, and that because she was part of the court case Maggie cannot tell her what. It’s created some unspoken negotiation between them.

“To the office. I had some things I needed to work out.”

“And did you?”

Maggie smiles up at her. Brushes their lips together gently.

“Yes.”

She pours the tea, hands a mug to Jocelyn and curls herself back into her body contentedly. They sit in silence for a while, Maggie tracing the wrinkles in the skin of Jocelyn’s hand.

“Did you plan this?” Maggie’s wanted to ask that for a while. She needs to know.

“No. I didn’t get much further than telling you I am in love with you.”

Jocelyn turns her hand over so their palms are together, interlaces their fingers.

“To be honest, I’m still on the hill.”

Maggie looks at her. “Sometimes I feel I am too.”

“You need to bring some things round, clothes, pyjamas. Things so you are comfortable here.” Jocelyn casts her eyes down, suddenly shy, playing with the tie on the dressing gown. “I want you to stay here tonight. Every night. I would like this to eventually be your home, Maggie, if you would be ok with that?”

 _Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge_... Maggie breathes out deeply. Jocelyn has been thinking about this too. She has been so overwhelmed by this these past few days, what she will have to give up to be with Jocelyn. But suddenly here is Jocelyn, in front of her, legs wrapped around her, asking her what she wants. And none of what Maggie is afraid of seems to matter anymore. She waits for Jocelyn to make eye contact, blue eyes regarding her intently, then kisses her softly.

“Yes.”


	8. I’ll Walk You Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all who have left kudos and comments – I value them immensely. There is a content warning of mental health issues for this chapter, but the next one should be lighter.

Jocelyn waited. The wind blew cold and damp through her layers. It was going to rain soon. She leant against Maggie’s car and lit another cigarette, breathed the smoke deep into her lungs to calm her. She really wasn't sure about this. Maggie should be leaving the office about now. It was Friday, and her first weekend off in months. Jocelyn had made sure of it. But her schedule was unpredictable, Jocelyn knew that, and she hoped she hadn’t been held up. And Maggie and timekeeping, Jocelyn smiled a little smile all to herself at that. That was a law unpredictable in and of itself.

She drummed her fingers nervously on her thigh. She needed to see her. But she didn’t want to go into the office. Too many eyes. It had been just ten days since she had kissed Maggie on the hill. She needed physical space between the newness of it and the world knowing – or at least in this case, Olly and Lucy, and therefore most of Broadchurch. She was only just managing to hold herself together in the wake of it as it was. Her desire for Maggie was intense. She often felt like she couldn’t breathe. And lately there had been a heaviness in her chest that she couldn’t push down. It joined with the dull throb that burnt deep in her belly whenever she thought about Maggie and became painful. She scuffed her walking boots on the pavement, dragged hard on her cigarette. Perhaps what she had planned wasn't such a good idea.

A small part of the heaviness was loss, Jocelyn knew that. She thought about her mum a lot. The initial torrent of grief at her passing had gone. It had turned out that Jocelyn had done much of her mourning a long time ago. But what she had lost in her mum’s death was the possibility of her. Even in the worst moments of the dementia, Jocelyn had known who she had been. Now she could only miss her.

Her mum had left Maggie money. A lot of money, according to Maggie. Jocelyn hadn’t realised her parent’s estate had held quite so much in trust. She had known there was money, obviously. There had always been money. She had grown up with it and, thanks to the foresight of her father, it would be there in her old age. It was just the nebulous grey area in between that she wasn't very good at. Jocelyn hadn’t known her mum had changed the will to include them both until last week. And she hadn’t known how to tell Maggie. In the end, she had waited so long to tell her that the lawyers had beat her to it. And Maggie had been angry. Maggie had been _furious_. Jocelyn had known for years that Maggie argued out of sexual frustration. She just hadn’t realised it was sexual frustration for _her_. And that heavy feeling had grown even heavier. For the first time since she had known Maggie, Jocelyn hadn’t argued back. She didn’t want to fight. She just wanted to ask for Maggie’s help managing the money. She wanted to be able to be close to Maggie and not have to feel this intensely.

Being with Maggie felt like completion for her. She had loved her for fifteen years, and there had been no one before her. The other women, the women she had found and substituted for Maggie, she had tied them up and fucked them hard and hadn’t really cared how they had felt about it. She had felt no emotional connection with them whatsoever. But they had known what they were signing up for – Jocelyn had always been upfront about the type of sex she had wanted. But not why she wanted it. Her overwhelming desire – her love – for Maggie, it had been her secret. She had just needed to feel close to her, to have what she had denied herself, to fix the mistake she hadn’t known how to fix. Before she had met Maggie, Jocelyn had thought she hadn’t minded not being with anyone. But in the years between their meeting and now, she had realised that it wasn't that she hadn’t minded, but that she had felt promised to someone. That Maggie was a woman, that her work mattered more, that Jocelyn was afraid. These were conventional excuses – real, but surface. Beneath them, Jocelyn knew the finality of being with Maggie. That promise. By the time she had wrapped her head around the enormity of it, the mistake had been made.

Now that she was with Maggie, that feeling hadn’t changed. Jocelyn loved her. Her love hurt her as a physical pain. Their sex was desperate. Never-ending. An explosion of want. An emotional tsunami suddenly unleashed. They tore at each other in their need to be together. Maggie left bruises, scratches, nail marks in her skin. Her body responded to Jocelyn’s hands, moved in ways that Jocelyn had never imagined. Maggie pushed her hips up into her to meet her fingers. Maggie told her what she wanted. Jocelyn treasured this as a newly discovered, private secret. She’d never get tired of it. Never take it for granted. She’d waited too long.

When she was near Maggie the air on her skin fizzed. The pull of her was so intense it was all she could think about. Jocelyn felt new and vulnerable at the same time. She wanted Maggie inside her somehow. But she couldn’t bear to be touched. Not her sex. Not the inside of her thighs. Not her breasts. She wasn't able to breathe. She felt like the innermost part of herself had been broken. She had thought her compartments had kept her safe. But every time they were together the walls came down and Maggie looked into her eyes and _saw_ her. _Wanted_ her. There was no emotional space and what she had seen there about herself scared her. She felt like she was expanding out, splitting her skin, the force of her emotions, barriers within her crumbling to this expansion. It felt like a nuclear mushroom cloud. Her body overloaded with it. She needed to have sex just to get it out. She felt like she was being torn open. Her skin, when she felt she had any, was all wrong. And that heavy feeling seeped through the cracks like emotional stone.

Jocelyn stubbed out her cigarette. Her head buzzed from the nicotine. She realised she must have lit it off the last one. She knew she wasn't very good with words. She didn’t think she was very good with relationships either. But falling asleep with Maggie in her arms was one of her most favourite things in the world, followed very, very closely by waking up with her. Or just before her. The precious quiet moments when she lay beside her and watched her sleep, still enveloped in the warm cocoon of each other. Like they were truly one body, one skin. Being with Maggie was completion, but Jocelyn didn’t feel whole. She hated how she felt. She wanted to push it all down. But her compartments no longer held. She didn’t want to think anymore. Didn’t want to _feel_ anymore. She just wanted to be with Maggie, held inside her in that warm cocoon before the early morning light.

Jocelyn looked up. Maggie was close. She could feel her. The white dots of her failing eyesight swam in her vision but she could make her out, walking towards her. Knee-length navy coat. Navy trousers that showed off her thighs. Olive jumper tight across her breasts. Shirt unbuttoned to reveal just enough cleavage. The start of the swell of her breasts as she moved. Jocelyn’s hands tingled. Her eyesight may be failing but she saw Maggie. She swallowed nervously. Maggie brushed her lips against her cheek.

“Hello, you.”

Jocelyn breathed her in through the heaviness in her chest. The wind was blowing her hair into her eyes. Maggie smelt of citrus, smelt of yellow. Jocelyn held herself tight. She wasn't ready to be so public. Perhaps her plans weren’t such a good idea after all. When she finally brought herself to look at her, Maggie’s eyes were creased, regarding her thoughtfully.

“I’m fine.”

“Hmph. No, you’re not, but we’ll see how we go.”

Jocelyn huffed and pulled out of her space.

“It’s ok.”

Maggie’s voice was soft. Jocelyn fought the urge to tell her to go away. She had promised Maggie she would treat her better.

“Have you eaten?”

Maggie looked surprised, but she tilted her head to one side like she did when she was pleased about something.

“I thought we could leave your car here and walk home along the beach, if the weather allowed? Stop and have chips?”

Jocelyn put her hands in her pockets and looked at her feet so she didn’t have to see Maggie’s response. Tension hardened in her body like a spring. She had tried to hide the emotional turmoil but she knew Maggie knew. She might say no because she thought Jocelyn wasn't ready. But Jocelyn needed to show herself right now that she wasn't just some foolish old woman who had kissed a girl she had thought was an angel on a hill. She _needed_ Maggie to know she could do this for her.

“Only if you’d like to?”

“I would.”

She sounded like she was smiling. Her soft accent pulled at her. Jocelyn looked up. She was smiling.

Jocelyn nodded.

“Right.”

Maggie held out her hand.

“Walk me home?”

They ate in silence. The dull rustle of paper over the sound of the sea as they speared chips with little wooden forks. They had decided, in the end, to sit on their bench – closer to home in case the weather gave out. Jocelyn was glad of the privacy. That mushroom cloud inside her was getting bigger. But she also liked these moments, the quiet companionship that often came with being with Maggie. Liked when they sat so close that their thighs brushed. She felt Maggie’s eyes on her and looked up to see her watching her, slate blue eyes shining. Her errant hair across her cheeks. Her lips all shiny and salty. She looked beautiful. Jocelyn leant into her and kissed her gently.

“Hmm...”

Maggie hummed contentedly against her.

“You know, this could almost be a date.”

“Could it?” Jocelyn tried to sound nonchalant. “I haven’t been on one.”

Maggie pulled back to look at her.

“Really?”

“There’s no need to sound so incredulous about it.”

“No, you’re right, I’m sorry.” Maggie rubbed her arm affectionately, warm against the wind. Jocelyn’s skin fizzed.

“It’s just, you’re beautiful, Jocelyn. I’ve seen men flirt with you. Lots of men. Lots of women too... _I’ve_ flirted with you. You never said yes to even one of them?”

“You’ve flirted with me?”

Jocelyn looked up at her tentatively. Maggie’s eyes glittered.

“I’m flirting with you now.”

“Hmm... You are?”

“You flirt with me too.”

“I do not.”

Jocelyn hid. She knew she hid. For much of her life she had been able to compartmentalise and therefore conceal how she felt. But Maggie just rolled her eyes.

“Oh please, you have been making what my great niece calls ‘heart-eyes’ at me for fifteen years.”

“Have I?”

Jocelyn was surprised. She dipped her head so she could look at Maggie and not look at her at the same time, smiled at her cautiously.

Maggie smiled back. “You’re making them at me now.”

“Is that how you knew? On the hill? Before I told you?”

But Maggie just went back to eating her chips, her eyes still smiling like she was keeping a secret.

“Do you actually know when people are flirting with you?”

Jocelyn shrugged, speared another chip. “I’d always assumed people didn’t.”

Maggie squeezed her hand, suddenly serious.

“And you have never desired another woman, another person, other than me?”

Jocelyn stopped eating and looked at her thoughtfully. Maggie was coming way too close to where she had been these past few days. They hadn’t talked much, since they had kissed on the hill. But sometimes they would have these conversations, vignettes thrown up from the tsunami of fifteen years suddenly released. Floating debris that they turned over, examined, to see if it had a place, a value, in this new life. Jocelyn wasn't sure she wanted to have one of those conversations right now.

“You know I haven’t.”

“Did anyone hurt you, Jocelyn? Physically or, or sexually?”

Jocelyn often wondered about the labyrinths of Maggie’s mind. She had always known that she herself was smart. In fact, she knew she was brilliant. But sometimes Maggie’s mind went into unexpected places, saw things her own didn’t. She didn’t want it anywhere near her emotional turmoil.

“Where are you going with this, Maggie?”

Maggie turned their hands over and entwined their fingers. Jocelyn had the sense that she was choosing her next words carefully.

“In my experience, people who don't recognise flirting can be quite vulnerable. Some people, especially some men, don't always back down.”

That heavy feeling seeped through Jocelyn’s skin, pulled her body down into the earth, but she didn’t go with it. Maggie was protecting her. Jocelyn tried to pull her hand away but her body didn’t seem to want to move. She had to force herself to speak, had to explain it to her somehow, before the heavy feeling pulled her apart.

“No one harmed me, Maggie. And no one harmed me as a child. My childhood was happy. My adult life successful. But I hadn’t wanted love, sex, a relationship, I thought it was normal to just focus on my work. It was only when I met you that I realised that perhaps it wasn't.”

She felt Maggie’s hand on her cheek, turning her to face her.

“It’s ok, Jocelyn.”

Her eyes were soft, gentle. Jocelyn suddenly felt very tired, like the last of her energy she had been holding onto for days was finally seeping away.

“No, it’s not. Everything has changed.”

“You’ve had a lot going on, it’s normal to feel overwhelmed.”

“No. No, you’re not getting it.”

She was tired of feeling like a scared little child, clawing away at the last of its skin, flailing at the rawness, pulling it apart. She had no protection from what was happening anymore. She was so tired of all this feeling.

“When we ... When we ...”

Jocelyn closed her eyes. She couldn’t say it.

“Make love?” said Maggie quietly. “Have sex?” Even quieter.

“I can tell I’m not _like_ you, Maggie.”

Jocelyn used the last of her strength to get the words out. This was so important. She knew Maggie could see inside her. Knew Maggie had seen this. Why did she think it didn’t matter? It was tearing her apart.

“I had always thought I was different because I loved you, Maggie. But now I realise I must be different because I’m _me_. There must be something wrong with _me_.”

Jocelyn felt the mushroom cloud suddenly go boom. The explosion was so quiet. The heaviness pulling her body one way while she went another. It was strangely peaceful. Jocelyn was floating. Everything had gone.

Maggie’s voice soft, pulling at her gently.

“We need to go home, my darling.”

Maggie kept a firm hold of her hand as she helped her up from the bench. She was warm and yellow through Jocelyn’s haze, the slight pressure of her arm against hers, her hand against hers, guiding her as they walked up to the house. Jocelyn’s eyesight was blurry. She was exhausted. In the dim recesses of her mind that still burnt, she realised that perhaps she hadn’t been as ready as she had thought. She allowed Maggie to take her coat, untie her shoes, take her hand again softly, to lead her through the dark, warm house to their bedroom, allowed Maggie to sit her on the bed, cup her face in her hands, kiss her gently.

“You’re not ok, are you?”

Jocelyn didn’t know how to respond. The words didn’t seem to be there.

“Can you get ready for bed?”

Maggie’s blue eyes penetrated into her. She seemed very concerned. But Jocelyn just felt tired. So tired she didn’t seem to be in her body anymore. Maggie knelt before her and ran her hands over Jocelyn’s shoulders, down her arms, holding the edges of her woollen polo as she looked up at her. She undressed Jocelyn slowly, gently, meeting her eyes between each item to check she was ok. Jocelyn wanted to say she was. But the words didn’t seem to come out. Perhaps she really wasn't. But she was too tired to care about it. She wasn't even afraid of Maggie undressing her. Her body was in one place and she was slightly in another. It was actually rather pleasant, in its own way. It meant she no longer had to feel.

Maggie undressed and sat down beside her, drew her close. Ran her hands over the burning rawness where her skin had once been. Jocelyn sank into the relief of it. Sank into Maggie as she pulled Jocelyn into the bed with her, pulled the covers over them, wrapped her body around her gently. The solidness of Maggie holding her together. Maggie’s arms. Maggie’s legs. Maggie’s scent. Maggie was helping her breathe.

“It’s ok, my darling.”

Maggie cradling her. Maggie holding her inside her.

“It’s ok.”


	9. In Your Arms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the many comments on the previous chapter! I am still writing this, it is my first love, just a little slower as I have begun writing other stuff. As this hasn’t been updated for a while, if anyone notices any continuity errors, please let me know and I will fix them.  
> I struggled with this chapter, so I hope it has done these two justice.  
> NSFW.

Maggie stared out at the ocean. She needed to be by herself for a moment. Her last appointment of the morning had run over, they always did, and the beach was quiet, mid week, mid morning, too late for the pensioners and too early for the office workers. She knew she was late to meet Paul for their weekly coffee, but she needed this time. She brushed her hair out her eyes and faced into the wind coming off the sea, lifted her face and closed her eyes into the new May sunshine. Her blazer blew out behind her in the wind, her trousers whipped around her legs. She stood still, just for the moment, and breathed in deeply. Salt, and wind, and the faint scent of lavender. The silence of the cliffs as loud as the ocean. There really was no other place like it, she thought, this place she had chosen as home. She felt strangely held here, in this place, held in its depths and in its silences. Strangely held in Jocelyn. In the strange place that was their relationship of two weeks and fifteen years.

She supposed it should be unsettling, that Jocelyn had broken down so badly. These past five days, Jocelyn hadn’t so much as kissed her, and she didn’t talk, although at night she lay curled up into her, Maggie’s arms around her, barely breathing at the contact. But the truth was that much of these five days had been just what Maggie had needed, deep nights of falling asleep in her arms. And when she had cried out in the middle of one of them, woken up petrified as she had watched Danny’s body falling off the cliff onto the beach below, it had been Jocelyn who was holding her, Jocelyn who lay her back down into the bed quietly, Jocelyn who pulled the covers over them, keeping her safe long after she had fallen back to sleep into the soundless dark. Jocelyn whom she had longed for when she had returned to her house to pick up more clothes on the weekend, surprised at how empty it felt, how disconnected from it she felt, how easily Jocelyn, and the safe, warm space of her arms had become home. In this space, Maggie now finally admitted she was exhausted. She had been on the verge of tears for days, without really knowing why. And she had held onto Jocelyn every night as though clinging to a lifeline she didn’t know she had.

Maggie opened her eyes. She didn’t want to think too much. She fished into her shoulder bag for her e-cig and puffed quietly against the wind for a while, then made her way up the beach and onto the promenade without looking back. Whatever was happening, she wanted to stay just below the surface of her emotions. She didn’t want to move out of this safe, warm space. She didn’t want to have to wonder too deeply about it. It wasn't complicated. Jocelyn gave everything of herself to her when they made love. She could make her come so softly, so slowly, so roughly, so _orgasmically_ , her fingertips tracing the primal patterns of their joint existence into her skin so tenderly that Maggie wanted to cry. Like Jocelyn, she saw herself in these moments. But she had been out – and defiant – since she was 20. Jocelyn seemed to question the world as if it roared the answers of herself at her, and then was completely baffled when it didn’t. Maggie sighed. Jocelyn had desired only her. She suspected that the world did not even whisper answers at Jocelyn.

She turned off the promenade down the side street to the Echo and drew up alongside the coffee shop on the corner. Paul was waiting for her, a cup of coffee ostentatiously in front of him. Maggie smiled. He looked so self-consciously awkward and uncomfortable, sitting on his own. She really was rather fond of him. Her heart floated to the surface of her emotions for a moment and tears welled up behind her eyes. She pushed it back down gently, nestled it back into its safe, warm space, quiet and loved in Jocelyn’s arms. She didn’t want to think too much. She took a deep breath, and pushed open the door.

It was dark by the time Maggie made her way up the pathway along Briar Cliff. The council meeting had run over, it always did, and she was tired to her bones. It had been a long, long, long day. She drew her coat tighter around her. The wind was cold. The pathway dark. Thick, heavy clouds blew over the moonlight. Her hair was in her eyes but she was too tired to push it back. Leaving her car at home this morning had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Then Lucy hadn’t come in and Olly had taken most of the day off to look for her and Maggie had juggled his appointments alongside news that didn’t stop happening petal just because she was overstretched. She had refused to give in and ask Jocelyn to fetch her. The doctor had said no driving at night. Maggie suspected it should be no driving at all. And she knew Jocelyn would risk it if she asked her.

She stopped midway along the path and looked up at the dark house. A soft yellow light glowed quietly from their bedroom. Her heart pulled forward in her chest. She wanted her. It really was as simple as that. She had felt a lot better after talking with Paul. He hadn’t asked about Jocelyn and Maggie hadn’t said, but she had invited him round for dinner one evening this week. Jocelyn needed to talk. Maggie knew she wouldn’t go to counselling, and she wouldn’t go near the church. But she might agree to go walking. _Being Maggie Radcliffed_ , Jocelyn called it. It may just work. She opened the gate as the sensor light sprang on blindly, grappled into the wind to close the latch behind her. She found the key under the flower pot and let herself in quietly, dropped her coat and bag where she stood, padded her way barefoot up the stairs. She was too tired to eat. She just wanted to fall asleep in her arms.

She paused in the doorway of their bedroom. Jocelyn had only the bedside light on. She was sitting propped up against the pillows in bed, her head back, her eyes closed, listening to an audio book. The soft yellow light lit her pale skin beautifully. _Love_ , thought Maggie, as Jocelyn opened her eyes and looked at her. The magnetic pull of her was suddenly painful. Jocelyn smiled at her, pulled her headphones off and set them down beside her on the bed. She looked uncertain. She held out her hand to Maggie shyly. Maggie crossed the room and took it without hesitation, allowed herself to be pulled down into her gently. Jocelyn wrapped her legs around her, cocooning her in her warmth, holding Maggie in place. Maggie could feel the muscles of her thighs tightening around her. She nuzzled into her neck softly, brushed her lips against her skin. She smelt of cigarettes and fresh-washed lavender. Desire uncoiled warm and white and joyous inside her. She slid her hands under the silk of her pyjamas, wrapped her arms around her waist, snuggled deeper into her. She was so soft and warm and it had been a long, long day.

“You are home late?”

Her words were slow and hesitant. Maggie looked up at her. Jocelyn met her gaze quietly. Held her deep blue eyes.

“I covered the council meeting.”

Jocelyn kissed her hair gently and Maggie burrowed back down into her. She waited. She could see she wasn’t ok. She sensed Jocelyn was using her words more carefully than usual, tentatively, gossamer threads reaching out across these five days.

“Couldn’t Olly have done that?”

“Olly took the afternoon off.” Maggie sighed. Jocelyn was stroking her hair. “Lucy didn’t turn up for work again.”

“Ah.” Her legs tightened around her gently, pulling her closer. Maggie smelt her warmth. It really wasn't that complicated, these first tentative steps together.

“What were you listening to?”

Jocelyn’s hand stilled on her hair. She regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. Then slowly, watching her carefully, Jocelyn reached for the headphones, held them against her ear and swiped play.

“Harry Potter?” asked Maggie, surprised.

Jocelyn didn’t meet her eyes. “I like it,” she said in a soft, small voice.

She didn’t have to say the rest. Beneath the words, Maggie heard the tentative step. _It is my safe place. I read this when my life is hard and my compartments fail me. I am entrusting you with this place. It is safe for you here. I can hold you_. The tears that had been threatening behind her eyes for days broke through slowly. She wept quietly against her chest as Jocelyn held her, her arms tight around her, the sound of her heart, steady and constant.

When she felt the silence that had been these five days and fifteen years, she looked up at Jocelyn tentatively. Jocelyn stroked her cheek slowly, the pad of her thumb wiping away her tears. It wasn’t complicated at all.

“You will feel better if you shower, my darling,” she said softly. “Then come to bed.”

Maggie towelled her hair dry as she left the en suite, dropped the towel onto the floor. Jocelyn said nothing. She was too exhausted to care. She sat down on her side of the bed. Leant into Jocelyn as she felt her nestle herself behind her and slide her arms around her waist, kiss her hair softly.

“Eat,” Jocelyn said gently. “Then sleep.”

Maggie looked up. She was so tired she hadn’t noticed. There was a sandwich on a plate on the bedside table. Her empty stomach lurched painfully. She reached for a quarter and wolfed it down in two bites, barely bothering to chew, then reached for another, slower this time. She felt like she wanted to cry again. Cheese and pickle on fresh white bread, it was her favourite.

“Is it ok?” Jocelyn asked softly as she ate, stroking her hair. “I didn’t know if you would want cheese before bed.”

Maggie leant deeper into her. Her skin tingled, despite her tiredness, her day, her tears. Her whole body was warm. She brushed her lips against the soft curve of Jocelyn’s neck, allowed herself to linger, her breath shallow against her skin, the constant throb between her legs whenever she was near her radiating out again softly. It had felt so long.

“It’s perfect, my darling,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

She looked up into Jocelyn’s eyes. Deep, beautiful blue eyes that clouded in places as they lost and regained their focus. It felt like forever but was probably no more than a moment. Maggie felt like the world passed between them. Everything they had not said these five days. Then pain stabbed through the brightness in Jocelyn’s eyes and she pulled away. Maggie took her hand and brushed her fingers down the soft skin of her palm. Jocelyn raised her eyes to hers slowly. She gave a shy smile.

“We could listen together, if you like?” said Maggie, indicating the e-reader.

“Only if you want to?”

Maggie tangled their fingers together gently. “I do.”

She lifted Jocelyn’s hand to her lips and kissed each of her fingers slowly. Jocelyn watched her, almost reverently, thought Maggie. As if she was afraid to touch her. She stopped. Suddenly unsure. She suddenly seemed very uncertain. And very, very tired. Their connection pulled at her whole body. Her skin was humming. She just wanted to be in her arms.

“We can use the headphones for my phone?” she said tentatively. “It will be easier with two of us?”

She felt like her body was floating. She was aware of Jocelyn pulling back the covers, holding her arms around her gently as she eased her down. Her hands firm and sure through her pyjamas. She could barely keep her eyes open. There was more darkness than the soft yellow light. She felt Jocelyn lean over her carefully, heard her bedside drawer open and close, soft clicks as she changed headphones. Then the weight of the e-reader, bright beside her on the pillow. Maggie curled her body tightly around her emotions. She needed her heart to stay here, held in the safe, quiet space of Jocelyn. Her whole body breathed out as Jocelyn lay down beside her. Then in her sleepy state there was the exquisite joy of her skin as Jocelyn folded herself around her and accepted her into her safe, warm space. The gentle quietness as her arm snaked around her stomach and pulled her into her softly, the chord of the headphones pulling slightly. Maggie probably heard two words of Stephen Fry’s voice before she fell asleep but she didn’t care. She was loved.

Jocelyn woke her later, gently, just before dawn. Maggie turned in her arms and regarded her thoughtfully, quiet in the dark, then she cupped her face with both her hands and kissed her softly. She was certain now. Jocelyn didn’t close her eyes. Maggie moved her mouth against hers slowly, tenderly, achingly. Warm, open-mouthed kisses that pulled at her skin. Jocelyn watched her. Desire spread out warm and soft through Maggie’s body. She brushed her tongue into her mouth, and Jocelyn closed her eyes. Her hand moved to Maggie’s hip, then under her pyjamas to the soft, warm skin of her waist, drawing her closer into her body. Maggie gripped her fingers through Jocelyn’s hair, curled them to grasp at the base of her neck. The emotional pull of her was magnetic, her body responded on its own, drawing her closer, climbing inside her skin.

Maggie rolled onto her back, drew Jocelyn into her as she kissed her, pushed her thigh between her legs and into her core. She let Jocelyn undress them, her hands on her waist and in her hair, pulling her to her, her tongue pushing hungrily between her lips, kissing her and kissing her and kissing her. Maggie had the sense of something suppressed within her being released. She would do anything she asked. Their breasts and stomachs pressed together, warm wetness on her thigh. She felt Jocelyn’s body melt into her with pleasure, her hands tightening into her hair, deepening their kisses in her longing. She pressed her hips up into Jocelyn, their connection sure and certain inside her. Her desire was painful.

Maggie tangled her hands in her hair as Jocelyn pulled back, holding her as she watched her. Jocelyn lubed her fingers slowly, pushed her hand between them and then between her legs. Maggie held her breath. This was the most erotic of acts between them. She would never get tired of this moment. Watching Jocelyn lube herself, then breathing out into her, into the rich exquisite pleasure of her, as Jocelyn moved her hand to press her long, slick fingers deep inside her. Maggie arched her hips to take her deeper, gripped her hands harder into her hair to pull her close as Jocelyn moved them together and thrust slowly, her sex against her thigh, their lips brushing, watching her. Her breath soft and warm against her skin, the sound of her fingers full inside her. She held her as she spread her legs wider, arched her back so Jocelyn’s hand hit her clit with each deep, liquid thrust. Her orgasm beginning to blossom through her body like light, her muscles tightening around Jocelyn’s hand. She cried out into her as she came. Held her in this moment as she loved her. Held her as Jocelyn continued to move inside her, pushing her through the light, her nails deep into her back as she gasped in pleasure, held her as she came in her safe, warm arms.


	10. Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me ages to write this – real life kept getting in the way – and it turned out nothing like what I had drafted. Thank you to everyone who commented on the previous chapter, you kept me going.  
> Thank you to wolf_shadoe for the betaing.  
> This continues straight on (next day) from the previous chapter.  
> NSFW.

Maggie woke when she felt Jocelyn curl closer into her. She lay still for a moment, breathing in the sound of Jocelyn’s skin. Warm and musky and purple in the wet grey light. She smelt like sex. Maggie stroked her hair off her face gently, careful not to wake her. She loved these moments, when she woke before her in the soundless quiet of their bodies entwined together and Jocelyn, frowning in her sleep. It was a lot to be entrusted with. These private, intimate moments of watching her as she slept. Maggie rested her fingertips against her soft, warm skin, traced slowly down so she didn’t wake her. Jocelyn had shared these moments with no one else. Accumulated unwitnessed over a lifetime, and given to her now, so late and at the end of their lives. And even now, asleep and in her arms and about to go to work, Maggie wanted her.

She extricated herself from her body gently and sat up on the edge of the bed. Between her legs was still sticky and warm. Her joints popped stiffly. _Come on petal_ , she thought to herself. But her body protested painfully. Winced at the loss of Jocelyn’s warmth. At the need to get up when all she wanted to do was sleep. She shifted faintly, giving it time to adjust. It didn’t. She sighed deeply as she stood up. Picked up the wet towel off the floor and dropped it into the hamper on her way to the en suite. Jocelyn had left her dressing gown on the hook behind the door. She wrapped the soft material around her as she came back into the bedroom, checked she was still asleep, opened the curtains quietly. The rain was clearing. The view was spectacular.

And the light was all wrong.

_Shit_.

Had she even _set_ the alarm?

“What’s wrong?”

Maggie turned, every cell in her exhausted body responding to her voice. Jocelyn sat up and looked at her. The covers slid off her body and settled on the curve of her hip. Her breasts swayed slightly as she moved. Goddess, she was beautiful. The light from the windows hit her skin perfectly. Her dusky brown nipples already puckered in the morning cold. She held out her hand and Maggie moved toward her, allowed herself to be guided down gently beside her. Her body still warm from sleep. Her skin tingling softly. Maggie wrapped her arms around her and sighed into her. The pull of her was hypnotic.

“Call in sick.”

Jocelyn was stroking her fingertips through her hair. Maggie felt her move against her to untie her dressing gown, delicate fingers as they brushed the material off her shoulders and down her sides so they were skin-on-skin.

“You need to sleep,” she said quietly. She rubbed her cheek into her neck. Kissed soft, gentle lips into her skin. “We both do.”

Maggie was too tired to argue.

“I suppose the world will be safe from the Boy Wonder for a day,” she whispered.

“Two,” mumbled Jocelyn into her shoulder.

Maggie pushed her back slightly, cupped her face into her hands and kissed her good morning gently. “Two,” she said softly.

When Maggie woke again the sky was pink through the open curtains. She snuggled deeper into the warm white sheets, the warmth of Jocelyn entwined around her. She loved waking like this, all warm and sated and aching as she stroked her.

“Are you sure no one can see us?” she asked softly.

Jocelyn’s fingertips stilled sensuously low. She didn’t even glance at the French windows. Maggie held her breath. When Jocelyn spoke, her voice was low and husky and caught something painful at her core.

“I’m certain.” 

Maggie leant into her and kissed her. Their bellies pressed together. Her lips were soft and yielding. Maggie kissed her again. She wasn’t ok. She was talking but Maggie heard the something inside her that had broken. She cupped her face to look at her and Jocelyn rested her head into her hands without complaint, closed her eyes.

“Oh, my darling,” Maggie said quietly, pulling her between her legs and wrapping herself around her as best she could. Jocelyn buried her face into her chest. She let out a couple of wet, shuddering breaths and held onto her tightly.

“It’s ok.”

Maggie stroked her hair. Rocked her gently. Jocelyn’s body was rigid in her arms. She wanted to weep for her, hold her as she had held her last night.

“It’s ok.”

She switched the kettle on and dug down into the dishwasher, searching for their coffee mugs. She heard Jocelyn close the door quietly as she came in from outside, straightened up into her as she wrapped her arms around her and pulled her back into her gently. Her hands slipped under the flannel of her dressing gown, flat palms seeking bare skin. She smelt of cigarettes.

“Better?”

“Hmmm.”

“Your hands are cold,” she said softly, setting the clean mugs down on the counter and closing the flap of her dressing gown over her arms.

“Hmpf.”

Maggie felt her rest into her quietly. She turned her head to look at her. Her cheek rested on her shoulder, strands of her hair brushed her neck as she breathed. Maggie knew she wasn’t ok. She had held her until she had refused to be touched, had looked everywhere but at Maggie as she had got out of bed, slipped on her dressing gown, gone out for a cigarette. More than one, judging by how long she had been out there. Her movements forced, distant. The tension in her body coiled around her like a spring.

“I decided on caffeine as opposed to wine,” she said into Jocelyn’s hair. “And there is leftover pasta from the other night in the fridge.”

She placed a tender kiss on her temple. Her lips fizzed softly.

“Go sit down at the table,” she urged her gently. “I’ll bring it to you.”

They ate in silence. Maggie sipped at her coffee between mouthfuls. It was late in the day but oh, she needed it. She had felt better for the sleep, but her body was already slowly screaming for more. She looked up at Jocelyn tentatively. Watched as she pushed food around her plate absently without seeing it. Their knees brushed beneath the table. She had barely touched her coffee. Every cell in Maggie’s body screamed towards her. She set her empty coffee mug down carefully, beside her own half-finished meal. It was so confusing, to be so tired, so worried about her, and want her so much at the same time.

“Jocelyn ...”

She looked up at her slowly. Her eyes were unreadable.

Maggie reached out her hand and touched her fingers to the skin of her wrist. She was warm and soft and strangely pliant. She slipped her fingers under the satin of her sleeve and stroked her arm slowly. Traced gentle, slow circles over her skin and down into her hand, into the long, tender elegance of her fingers. Jocelyn watched her. Her eyes darkening and strange. Her body rigid against her touch. Maggie returned her gaze. She wanted to speak to her, these past few days hung like a bridged gulf between them. She wanted her to feel she was _here_.

Jocelyn gave her a slow, hesitant smile. She turned her hand palm up into her stroking fingers. Gripped them hard.

“I need to go to bed now.”

Maggie brushed her hair out of her eyes to give herself some time. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting.

“Now?”

Jocelyn stood up. Her hand was firm and sure in hers. She pulled Maggie to her feet.

“Now.”

Jocelyn led her from the room and up the stairs, into their bedroom. She stopped at the side of the bed, held Maggie’s eyes as she tangled her hand into the short hairs at the base of her neck and pulled her into her, kissing her deeply. There was no preamble in her actions, no hesitant negotiation in her eyes, no wondering or even asking what Maggie wanted. Maggie felt the tie of her dressing gown loosen, Jocelyn’s long slender fingers brushing her shoulders as she pulled it roughly down her arms and over her hips onto the floor. Jocelyn knew exactly what she wanted. Her control was intoxicating. Touched and pulled at the desire that had built in Maggie’s body all day. Spilt it out white and hot. Maggie melted into her as she kissed her. She tasted of cigarettes and coffee and beneath that the faint smell of _her_ crystallising into her senses. She wove her hands into her hair and pulled her closer. Her tongue pushed hungrily into her mouth. She ran her hands down her back and pushed her body against the smooth satin of Jocelyn’s dressing gown, wanting the softness of her breasts against her own.

The back of her legs hit the bed and Jocelyn pushed her down, pulled her own robe off and climbed on top of her. Her thigh pushed down hard between Maggie’s legs, forced her sex open, pressed deep and sudden into her clit. Maggie gasped. There was a roughness to this, a need. She felt Jocelyn bite down into her neck as she kissed her, suck the pulse point harshly through her teeth as she began to move their bodies together. She couldn’t breathe. Jocelyn’s hand was on her breast, blunt nails raked down her side. The friction against her clit urgent and painful. She wanted her inside her, bucked her hips up into her hand to let her know, tangled her hands into her hair to hold on. Responding to her fingers with every thrust.

She pulled her up to kiss her. Tasted sweat and sex and lavender and the slickness of their thighs as they moved together. Jocelyn’s sex opening against her. The warm wet sound of her fingers curling inside her. Steady, deep. Relentless. She put her hands on her thighs to pull her deeper, pushed herself up to meet her mouth. She felt like she was going to explode, the pleasure flooded through her body in waves. Jocelyn pushed her back down hard into the bed as she came, forced her legs wider to expose her clit. Her dominance was intoxicating. Exhilarating. Maggie’s back arched into her hand. Her nails dug deep into her shoulders. Her head tipped back as her fingers continued to stroke inside her. Her weight pinned her down forcibly. Slow, excruciating circles spread out through her body.

“Look at me,” she heard Jocelyn whisper. Her breath firm and certain as her hand in hers had been. Her lips hot against her skin.

“I want to see you this time.”

Maggie woke. Jocelyn was spooned around her sleepily. The drying wetness of their sex was cold on her skin. Her body hurt. Her forearms throbbed painfully. Jocelyn had held her down forcibly hard when she had finally come. She moved their entwined hands gently out in front of her to look at her arms. Jocelyn roused against her quietly. Maggie couldn’t see if there were bruises in the dark. It had been too hard, perhaps. She wasn't quite sure where her line on this was, when it came to Jocelyn.

“Are you ok?” Jocelyn asked her softly.

Maggie turned in her arms. Her body protested painfully. Jocelyn didn’t open her eyes. She regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, quiet in the dark. Then she cupped her face with both her hands, pressed her body into her and kissed her. Warm, open-mouthed kisses that Jocelyn returned sleepily, brushing her tongue into her mouth with each slow movement of their lips. The sweet, gentle pressure of her mons against hers, the softness of her breasts. She could still taste their sex and their sweat.

“Yes,” she whispered back against her lips when they broke apart, rested their foreheads together as she caught her breath. “I would tell you to stop if I didn’t like it.”

Jocelyn’s arms tightened around her.

“We didn’t use lube,” Maggie continued quietly.

Jocelyn’s eyes remained firmly closed. She snuggled her face deeper into the pillow. “So you are awake now, hmmm?”

Maggie smiled. She was _here_. “A bit.”

“Hmph.”

She stroked her fingertips down her cheek slowly. 

“Would you like to listen to Harry Potter with me?”

“Hrph.”

Jocelyn buried her face back into the pillow, grumbled quietly as Maggie reached over her to the e-reader on the bedside table, settled back down beside her and kissed her lips softly. Jocelyn snuggled into her. Her arms snaked tighter around her, pulled her closer. Their noses touched, their lips brushed as they breathed. Maggie watched her long after she had fallen asleep in the darkness, the e-reader discarded beside them. She just wanted to hold her and never let her go.


	11. Falling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A week on. NSFW

Maggie opened the bedroom door with one hand, careful not to spill anything of the breakfast tray balanced against her. Jocelyn wasn’t in bed. She set the tray down on her bedside table and went back to close the door. It was May, but the night had been cold. They had had the radiators on. Maggie’s eyes found her as she turned back into the room. She had opened the curtains and was smoking on the balcony. The cloudy light of dawn lit her perfectly. Maggie traced the movements of her body. She would still be warm from sleep, her touch as they had coiled around each other. Her chest pulled painfully. Sometimes she found her so unbearably beautiful.

She sat down on the bed and waited for her. Wrapped her legs around her when she came in from the cold, her arms around her as she snuggled herself into her. She was soft and sleepy like a child. Maggie pressed a tender kiss into her hair, stroked her hand down the smooth satin of her dressing gown. She knew the medications she had started, following her breakdown, were beginning to affect her.

“Are you alright, my darling?” she asked her softly.

Jocelyn snuffled her face into her neck. Her long arms snaked under her pyjama top, cold hands found her warm flesh, and Maggie experienced the startling joy that broke upon her and cracked her skin every time Jocelyn touched her. She held onto her and allowed herself to break open. Breathed into the quiet, pure joy of this moment instead of her worry. She closed her eyes and held the warmth and weight of Jocelyn in her arms, heard the grey morning light breaking into the room, the criss-crossed shadows of air through the mullioned French doors. She would give anything of herself for these moments, the quiet contentment of her in her arms, the stillness that came from being with her.

She felt Jocelyn shift imperceptibly closer and Maggie opened her eyes to watch her, moved her hand into her hair and smoothed the greying strands off her face gently. She hadn’t realised how much stress she had placed on her life in not being with Jocelyn. Maggie knew now that Jocelyn had felt the same. Knew from the way she looked at her, from the way she touched her, from the way she made love to her. And they really did make love. Her body ached. It was exquisite, tender, all-consuming. Confused her and overwhelmed her. She had stopped calling it sex soon after that first night. It was the most intimate thing she had shared with someone. It pulled at her, even now. She couldn’t hide.

Maggie shook her head gently in an effort to clear it. Wrapped herself tighter around Jocelyn. Followed her deep, steady breaths. Overwhelmed or not, she needed to go to work soon. She reached over to the breakfast tray for a slice of toast, broke off a piece and fed it to Jocelyn gently. She had brought yogurt for her too but she didn’t think she would eat it. That slightly gnawing feeling of worry returned and Maggie pushed it down. She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Jocelyn ate even less since her breakdown. She broke off another piece of toast and held it tentatively to her lips, but Jocelyn buried her face away from her hand. Maggie nodded. She had expected as much. She popped the toast into her mouth and stroked Jocelyn’s hair quietly as she ate. By the time she reached over to pour herself a cup of tea, Jocelyn had fallen asleep against her.

Maggie walked home up the Briar Cliff pathway, checking her Twitter feed on her phone as she went. It had been a good day, for a Thursday. The world hadn’t fallen apart, and in the resulting calm she had put her paper to bed and got off early. The world was, right now, a really good place. There was still something left of the afternoon, Olly was covering the office, the spring sun had finally broken through the grey clouds of the early morning, and she was going to ask Jocelyn to join her for a walk. She stopped for a moment, looked up from her screen and out over the sea. The vast blue openness stared back at her. Maggie closed her eyes. Breathed in the salt and the wind flapping at her blazer and the faint purple scent of Jocelyn pulling at her. She enjoyed this time, between the office and what was becoming her home, between the world and Jocelyn’s arms. It was so right, walking home to her.

Her hair blew into her eyes and she brushed it back absently, blinked back slowly into the sunlight. Her eyes found the house and she held it as she walked. Jocelyn hadn’t woken when she had slipped away from her after breakfast this morning. Maggie couldn’t breathe for the longing in her chest sometimes. Jocelyn had kissed her on the other side of this path three weeks ago and her world had changed. She was no longer that woman, the person who had sat down on the blanket with her and accepted a glass of wine from her and watched the sky change as the sun had begun to set and tried to persuade her that there were no longer moments between them.

They listened to _Harry Potter_ , the evenings they didn’t make love. Some nights, she would lie awake long after Jocelyn had fallen asleep and watch her. She wanted to touch her, to make love to her. But Jocelyn was in a very strange place right now. Other nights, Jocelyn would wake her in the quiet and the stillness and make love to her. It was all she could think about. She felt a little like she had in her early forties, that strange transitional time when her body had begun to change and all she could think about was sex. But this was different. She wasn’t thinking about sex, she was thinking about _her_. Her mouth on hers, her weight holding her down, her hand inside her, her fingers curling into her as she fucked her. Sucking her fingertips and then kissing her so deeply she could taste her. She lost everything with Jocelyn, fell into her like she was weightless. There were always moments. There had always been moments. Except now she was falling into them. Maggie didn’t care. The tsunami of their emotions suddenly unleashed had destroyed the barriers of fifteen years, and Jocelyn was falling with her.

She paused when she reached the garden gate, thought about it for a moment, then swiped onto the Echo’s Twitter account. Olly now had to tell her everything he did on social media, but he tended to tell her after the fact, and Maggie simply didn’t trust his blind ambition. It tripped them both up. She opened the gate and went through it as she scrolled. Over the top of her phone, she saw Jocelyn knee-deep in a herb bed at the bottom of the garden. She’d lost weight. The old clothes she wore for gardening hung loosely off her frame. She watched her stand up stiffly as she saw her, throw her trowel into the earth and take off her gloves, tossing them to one side as she walked toward her. Maggie swallowed, her eyes drawn down to her breasts. Jocelyn visibly wasn’t wearing a bra. Her nipples puckered softly through the loose weave of her jumper.

“What is so important that you cannot even say hello to me, hmm?” she asked, putting both her hands on Maggie’s hips and pulling her into her.

Maggie heard the affection in her voice, the feeling in her eyes. She flipped the cover of her phone closed and leant into her to kiss her softly. Her skin tingled. She reached up and curled her fingers through the short hairs at the base of her neck, casually brushed her chest against her loose breasts as she kissed her again.

“You’re filthy,” she said when they parted, slightly breathless.

Jocelyn raised an eyebrow. A knowing smiled flittered across her lips.

“Do you really want to go there?”

Maggie laughed, brushed her fingertips over the streaks of earth on Jocelyn’s cheekbones. It really was the most gorgeous day.

“I was checking to see if the Boy Wonder had done anything I should know about.”

“Ah.” Jocelyn leant softly into her hand, her watching eyes flashed at her. “Is the world safe?”

“For now.”

“You’re home early.”

Maggie flushed through into her skin. There was no mistaking the darkness of Jocelyn’s eyes, the feather-light touch of her breath as her lips traced along her palm. She was beginning to suspect that Jocelyn had been out walking with Paul this morning. Jocelyn needed to _do_. It explained the gardening when she would have been inside working, the barely suppressed hunger of her body unravelling against hers as a lifetime of emotions teetered on the edge of her control and she wanted to make love to her. But not yet. Maggie had plans. She pulled herself away gently.

“Come for a walk up on the cliffs with me?”

Maggie bounded, she knew she bounded, down the stairs and into the kitchen. Jocelyn was cooking dinner and the entire house smelt of olives and fresh cream and newly-picked Italian thyme. She snaked her arms around her as she cooked. Leant into her back and moved with her. Her whole body hummed. The late afternoon sun had shone yellow and bright off the cliffs as they had walked, sparkled like fairy lights off the sea. Maggie had taken her arm and the light had caught in her hair, and Maggie’s breath had caught in her throat. She had smelt of lavender and summer sunshine from her shower, and Maggie could feel her desire uncoiling around her like a spring.

“There’s wine,” said Jocelyn, turning her head to kiss her softly.

Maggie hummed against her quietly. Then she picked up their glasses and carried them through to the dining room. Jocelyn had cleared away her work files, the table had been laid, and there was a small, black, soft-covered jewellery box set at Maggie’s place. Maggie stopped breathing, just for a moment. She took a sip of her wine and set her glass down beside the box carefully. Her fingertips brushed the soft black velvet. She could hear Jocelyn dishing up in the kitchen. Hear the endless, eternal rush of the ocean Maggie connected with her crystallising around her. She picked up the box and opened it. Inside were several newly-cut keys, laid out meticulously side-by-side. Maggie stroked her fingers slowly over the serrated edges. She had been using the spare keys under the flower pots at the front and back doors of the house for fifteen years. She was so used to it she hadn’t even thought about it.

“Alright?” asked Jocelyn when she brought in their plates.

“More than alright,” said Maggie softly, turning to her and kissing her.

Jocelyn smiled against her lips, then pulled back and met her eyes. Her bearing straightened, and she regarded Maggie with a confidence Maggie hadn’t seen before.

“I’m not falling into this, Maggie,” she said quietly. “I want to do it right.”

Her eyes flashed again with the something Maggie had seen in the garden earlier and she saw the glimmer of the woman she had loved before her breakdown ... and something more. She reached up and cupped Jocelyn’s face gently. Watched the cloudiness in her eyes focus and unfocus around the dots of light she knew were there. Her skin sang. She wanted to say she knew they had to live here. Wanted to tell her she knew why she watched her when they made love. But Jocelyn didn’t talk about these things. Maggie held their lips millimetres apart, pressed her salt-scented static into her skin. The black box of keys pressed between them like a promise.

Jocelyn leant into her and closed the gap between them. She brushed her smiling lips, just once, with her own.

“You need to eat before we do that.”

Maggie showered after dinner. When she came out the en suite, her hair still warm from the hairdryer, Jocelyn was standing naked by the side of the bed in the lamplight. Maggie went to her, rested her hand between her breasts lightly. Their eyes met and held. She wanted to touch her, and something passed between them Maggie couldn’t read. She closed her eyes and fell into the warm purple pressure of her against her skin. Felt the rise and fall of her body with each shallow breath. She allowed the soft, tender joy of the moment she had wanted all day to crack open her skin. Then she reached up and allowed herself to kiss her. Her lips were soft and warm. Her mouth opened for her gently. She let her lips move across her jaw. Her tongue down into the sensitive hollow of her neck. Brushed her fingertips light and soft down the shadow of her spine. Licked lavender and salt and the beginning of their sex. Pulling their mons together as Jocelyn arched into her.

 _Let go, my darling_ , she whispered quietly. Her skin breaking into the strength of her hands as Jocelyn moved to cup her face, fingers hard through her hair, her lips finding hers to kiss her. To tease her. Maggie moaned into her mouth. Allowed herself to collapse into her control. Gasped as her hands splayed warm and sure across her back, Jocelyn pulling her into her, Jocelyn lowering her gently onto the bed. Jocelyn pressing her weight into her to hold her down. Holding her eyes and watching her. Maggie opened her legs around her. Buried her hands into her hair as she bent down and kissed her. So delicious and delicate and slow. She wanted to do this every night for the rest of her life. Fall into her as she touched her. The muscles in her arms moving around her. No longer certain where her body ended and her own began. Her hand inside her, her tongue in her mouth in perfect time. The smell of their sex as Jocelyn wound her hand in her hair, pulling her up to kiss her as she got closer. Maggie pulled her hips into her. Brushed her soft breasts against hers. Lost herself in the friction of their thighs. Her love for her beginning to spill up over her in waves. She reached down between them, put her hand over hers to feel her moving inside her. Opened her eyes so she could watch her.


End file.
